Nehemiah 12-13

May 27

Nehemiah 12-13

After the wall was built, Nehemiah returned to Babylon to serve the king. While he was gone some of the people slipped right back into their old way of living. Eliashib, the priest allowed Tobiah, the man who tried to keep the wall from being built, to move right into one of the storage rooms in the temple. They went back to working, buying and selling on the Sabbath and intermarrying with the people around them who worshiped false gods.

It is often not the big things that trip us up in our walk with the Lord, but the little things. We allow little things to move back into our lives. Things that may have controlled our lives before we began to follow Jesus find their way back in our lives again. We think “one time will not matter,” or “I am no longer controlled by this action, so it is ok to participate,” or “it is not that bad compared to what I used to do.” We use these and many other excuses to go back to our sin. Sin that Jesus died to cleanse us of, we allow to move right into the temple, our bodies.

Proverbs 26:11 reads; "As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly." (Proverbs 26:11, NIV) This sounds kind of gross, but it reminds us that the temptation to return to our sin is always present. The Christian life involves continued walking with Jesus and perseverance in the face of temptation. The Israelites started to get back into their old habits even after God had brought them back from exile.

When Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem and saw what was happening he forcefully removed Tobiah from the temple storage room, threatened physical harm to anyone who desecrated the Sabbath, and beat and pulled out the hair of the men who married foreign women. All these actions led Israel away from God previously. Nehemiah was going to do all that was in his power to make sure it did not happen again.

We need to purposely and powerfully resist the things that pull us away from God. There are good things that are not good for us because we know from experience they draw us away from our relationship with God. There are other things that we know do not please God. "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings." (1 Peter 5:8-9, NIV)

God gives us the power to overcome through the Holy Spirit. We just have to use the strength God has given us. Self control and perseverance will keep us walking on the path God has called us to walk.