Pastor Bell's Words To Live By

One of the major themes of the book of Nehemiah for me is this: God uses ordinary men and women to fulfil his purposes in the earth. Nehemiah was an ordinary civil servant whose spirit was stirred up when he heard the news about his beloved city, Jerusalem. Once we recognise that there is a greater power than ourselves and that this power is outside of our control we can yield to it. We know that this power is not an ‘it’ but is the almighty God, Yahweh. We also know that he appeared to us in human form as Jesus the anointed one, the Messiah. We have also learned from Nehemiah and Ezra that when we confess our faults, seek him in prayer, fasting and obeisance he make ways that were not seemingly possible before. We also get to understand that favour is not fair but ‘sure is good’. Another important lesson that we learned is this, whenever God has put something in our hearts to do as soon as we take the first step of faith, we are faced with opposition. For Nehemiah he had the diabolical trinity of Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem the Arab opposing him. Tobiah even rented a room in the temple while Nehemiah was away to find out what was going on and to stop the prayer, praise and worship to God going up.

Today, we are also faced with a trinity of opposition. They are; the ‘world’, the ‘flesh’ and the ‘devil’. And like our ancestors of faith, we must fight them with the spiritual tools we have been given. If you don’t know what the spiritual weapons we have are, then here is a starter: The Name of Jesus, The blood of Jesus, the armour of God (Eph.6:10ff), corporate prayer and praise and worship. As we use our spiritual weapons we will rebuild all the broken walls and re-institute God’s divine order. Read the prayer in Nehemiah 1:5-11; and 9:5b-37.