Dear beloved: Nehemiah and his friends completed the wall on the twenty-fifth of the month Elul, in fifty-two days.(Neh.6:15) v16 And it came about when all of our enemies heard of it, and all the nations surrounding us saw it, they lost their confidence; for they recognized that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God. Beloved, when you do a mighty work for the Lord it will demoralize the enemy in your life. 1 John 4:4 tells us, You are from God little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He that is in you that he who is in the world. And so we have the confidence that when we are building for the kingdom God will give us the tools, the resources, the provision, and the strength to accomplish the task He has given us, and the enemy in our life will lose his confidence! That's good news for us in this day when we feel beat up and all alone in the face of our enemy.
It is this confidence we have in the Lord that gives us the strength to move forward in the kingdom pursuits even though in the flesh we know we are not adequate for the task. But when you listen to the Holy Spirit and then are obedient to the call, God will provide even the smallest of your needs. In Luke 16:10 Jesus says, "He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much." and v11 "If therefore you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous mammon, who will entrust the true riches to you?" And again in Luke 19:16, in the parable Jesus spoke of the minas, And the first appeared, saying, "Master, your mina has made ten more." v17 and the master said to him, "Well done, good slave, because you have been faithful in a very little thing, be in authority over ten cities." And the master gave a reward of five cities to the next slave who returned five minas for his work, but to the slave who put away his mina in a handkerchief, the master took the mina away from him and gave it to the one who already had ten minas. The master then explains himself in this way, v26, I tell you, that to everyone who has shall more be given, but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away. And so God is saying to us to put to work for the kingdom that which we have been given, and if we are faithful in using that, then He will give us more. We need not shrink back in fear thinking that He will not provide or that we are not adequate for the task; God does not call the equipped, He equips the called!
The events following the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem prove that the rebuilding was just the start of a mighty work that the Lord wanted to do in that day. After the walls were built, the gates were made and hung, the Ezra the priest brought out the book of the Law (Chapter8) and read it before the people, and the feasts of the book were put into practice; the people lived in booths during the feast of the seventh month (tabernacles). And so what started out as an idea placed into Nehemiah's heart by the Holy Spirit of God led eventually to rebuilding and restoration of the kindom in Jerusalem, to repopulating and cleansing of the house and people of Israel. Beloved, what small thing is God calling you to do today? No matter how small or insignificant you think it may be, go ahead and step out it faith and act upon it. God will add to it and multiply it, your enemies will lose confidence, and you will be rewarded for your faithfulness. Faith without works is dead, James tells us in James 2:17, so put your faith to work today, and watch God go to work in your life. God bless you this day as you go about building the kingdom in your life, in Christ, Jim
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