On to Nehemiah...

What an amazing experience that I had yesterday. I was not in the first chapter of Nehemiah; that had been the day before. I entered into Nehemiah's prayer by printing it out and meditating on it. Even though, I know the context and have been there at Nehemiah in my bible-time many times before, my recent state of mind makes it seem very new. I listen as though this is my very first time in the book. I am introduced to a man in Nehemiah, who clearly has a burden of prayer for His people. He commits it, intently to God in an amazing prayer and it could take me a year to really absorb the depths of His prayer and observation and identification with His people. I do wonder often if anyone today really relates to any group with that type of love and hopefulness.

My eye was on God's hand that kneaded into His Old Testament Saints {through many mothers' instruction, I might add} a sense of unity and identification with one-another's sins and blindspots. What we all do affects all of us, is the amazing perspective of Nehemiah's prayer. Perhaps, the sad state of being in captivity draws our eyes to a cleansing perspective. God had equipped Nehemiah with a vision and a plan of reconstruction. He prayed and left it at God's throne.

I couldn't relate to the leaving of the burden there. I was still stuck in chapter one, when I found myself at chapter 2, yesterday. Nehemiah's hands were already dirty and meeting the enemies and deeply engaged in the battle for God honoring reconstruction and protection of God's people. I wasn't ready for this in my heart. I wanted to stay at the throne and see God laying out the blueprints for Him. I wanted a promise to stand on or a word from the Lord to go on. The prayer happened and God seemed to say, what you are saying isn't the half of where your people are. I am there, God said and thrust Nehemiah straight into the solution, without a promise of completion or support. I guess that was obvious that God was more committed than Nehemiah was. But it shocked me. I wanted to know ahead of time, whether Nehemiah was going to succeed. I wanted to know what God thought about the prayer. Good praying, or something to go on. Next thing he was looking into the eyes of the enemy.

Nehemiah was a real man about it! There was a sense of blessing that men have that type of fortitude then and now.

Now looking into Leviticus...

Looking at Leviticus is like walking through a thicket of dos and don'ts. I am looking at sacrifices and I can see the sacrifice of Christ which was far superior to any animal sacrifice or combination of sacrifices and God seemed to be setting the value system of heaven for the dummies that we are. There is no comparison to the sacrifice of Christ.

Now, as I look at the clean and unclean animals, I say that is something that I now a little bit about. I grew up looking at this and that as yucky, not to mention Kosher or unKosher.

When I go into the laws, I remember the sheet that came down to Peter. God had to announce from Heaven, "Don't call something unclean that I have cleansed!" What an eyeopener, must this revelation have been to a believing Jew of the first century, much less Peter; who walked with Jesus. I am sure that they thought that the cleansing that Jesus came to do, was to make them more Kosher than even the Jews were. What is this about going down, instead of going up? God would spend the rest of New Testament history explaining that He is not an exclusivist, but an inclusiveness. He sets the ground rules and none of us deserve Heaven. Even with all of the sacrifices that have been from the earliest of times to now, piled up together; without Christ we all should be crumpled as a piece of paper and thrown into the fire. Not the righteous...Sinners, Jesus came to call.

Why do we know the ten commandments? says the catechism. Why do we study the book of Leviticus, with any real mental ascent? The Ten Commandments teach us our duty before God and show us our need of a Savior!

Lord, we should say, I am one of those unclean animals, but for the Grace of God and the sacrifice of God and am not even fit to be placed on the altar of sacrifice as for your use, but you have made me clean and you have made us a Kingdom of Priests, who were fit for the refuse pile and despised. How shall we escape that refuse, if we neglect so great a salvation? Grant grace and favor, dear Lord. Help us see our despised state and use it to be humbled to glorify you. In Jesus' only pure name. Amen.Amazing Grace is found in Leviticus, amen.

Just a thought in the light of William Jennings Bryan's Cross of Gold speech on my mind

Proverbs 11:29  He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart. Proverbs 11:30 The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise.

When are you going to get past Proverbs 11:29? Is my question to myself. Don’t you see that there is an 11:30. There is a tree of life to pursue and there is a life of winning souls to engage in. You keep looking at the losing of souls and the troubling of the house. Get up and smell the coffee, so to speak. Plant that tree and search it out and look to the unfolding.

Are You My Alma Mater? Hold my soul, Lord!

Acts 27:23  For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, Acts 27:24  Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar: and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee. Proverbs 7:26  For she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her. Proverbs 7:27  Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.

If there is a woman whose way is the way to hell, there must be another way, also! How's your faith?

I read that little book to my children, Are you my mother?

I think of the question with regards to education in America. Can something be a soul mother, which has cast off the reigns of God’s Word? Can we be carrying souls to heaven while despising the commandments that are the transforming purpose? Christ’s work was to fulfill the Law and His Word is a light. We live in a day of erasing the handwriting of God on the wall of our nation. The wonderful experience that we had seeing God bring a huge storm over Chowan, the last time that we took Evie back there, seemed a token of anointing of God on that school and their processes. It was as though God had given us all of the children there and was about to bless the season of education. God seemed to say that He was placing his bangs and locks of his hair on that school and their efforts, when wedded with prayer and purposes of truth, during this dark night of our nation's education crisis. We pray and agree that God is able to wrestle truth out of darkness and reclaim our children from the wreckage of darkness. God is working and the wondrous sight that we saw as we took our eyes upward out of Pastor Boyce's book to the sky, gave me the confidence that we were running our ship aground for His glory! I got this, God seemed to say.

We pray, as little David played his harp, Dear Lord, Play your harp! Amen. Don't pay attention to our temper tantrums of wrangling against you. Play your harp!

Choose none of his ways...{Ways of oppression are not to be in the syllabus}thoughts from Proverbs 3

Proverbs 3:30  Strive not with a man without cause, if he have done thee no harm. Proverbs 3:31  Envy thou not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways. Proverbs 3:32  For the froward is abomination to the LORD: but his secret is with the righteous. Proverbs 3:33  The curse of the LORD is in the house of the wicked: but he blesseth the habitation of the just. Proverbs 3:34  Surely he scorneth the scorners: but he giveth grace unto the lowly. Proverbs 3:35  The wise shall inherit glory: but shame shall be the promotion of fools.

i.e.. LaMancha Kidnapped Gulliver symptoms of loss of dominions.

Don’t envy when others have dominions that you haven’t got. i.e. facility of speech, money, rhythms, people power. God has a meeting out of expectation based on received dominions and he ready stands to steal those dominions back to show his power. This isn’t stealing because He owns it all. The glory of it will be His or we will be the devil’s. Did I oppress you? He asks. why would you make study of the ways of oppression a major to be studied?

Joy to the World---a link to Zechariah 5

Joy to the world! the Lord is come; Let earth receive her King; Let ev'ry heart prepare Him room, And heav'n and nature sing, And heav'n and nature sing, And heav'n, and heav'n and nature sing. Joy to the earth! the Saviour reigns; Let men their songs employ; While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains, Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat, repeat the sounding joy. No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow Far as the curse is found, Far as the curse is found, Far as, far as the curse is found. He rules the world with truth and grace, And makes the nations prove The glories of His righteousness, And wonders of His love, And wonders of His love, And wonders, wonders of His love.

Do we live in Zechariah 5, or after it? That was Zechariah's vision of what power the Church of Christ would have over all of the things that curse the earth, in that day. Do we live, as in that day?

We are blessed to grow and create policy that bind and loose things from Heaven to Earth. God has given that authority to the Church and we must live with an eye to see God bringing Heaven to us, as we sing at Christmas time. Bring Jesus to us, in our thinking and in our policies in our homes and in our communities and in our government. Amen

The Kingdom of Christ is a blessed possession.Zechariah 5

After Daniel, I went to Zechariah-

Zechariah 1:1  In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the LORD unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying,

Zechariah 1:8  I saw by night, and behold a man riding upon a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees that were in the bottom; and behind him were there red horses, speckled, and white.  Zechariah 1:9  Then said I, O my lord, what are these? And the angel that talked with me said unto me, I will shew thee what these be.  Zechariah 1:10 And the man that stood among the myrtle trees answered and said, These are they whom the LORD hath sent to walk to and fro through the earth.  Zechariah 1:11  And they answered the angel of the LORD that stood among the myrtle trees, and said, We have walked to and fro through the earth, and, behold, all the earth sitteth still, and is at rest.  Zechariah 1:12  Then the angel of the LORD answered and said, O LORD of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten years?

Lessons that I see on the surface: 1. Don't we want to be people whose policies allow the restoration of God's people to take place, both in "vision" and in actuality? Zechariah, saw God's mending hand and Ezra acted it out.

2.Don't we want to be people whose prayers are for the restoration of our land and God's hand of mercy upon it?