For years we have enjoyed gaining insight into the scriptures by the reading of devotions and others Christian writings. As the church we would like to offer this weekly encouragement for you to consider.
Today we’re going to look into the life and ministry of Nehemiah. He is known for many qualities, but today we’re going to focus on one aspect. How he recorded the names of the people that worked on the wall, and why they were important to him. Nehemiah 3:1-32
One commentator has said, God is a great believer in putting names down. That is true. There are many chapters like this in the Scriptures. But that should really encourage us. It means that God has not forgotten our names either. He loves to record the names of obscure people.
The central teaching of a chapter like this is that in putting lives back together, we need and must seek help from each other. This is a great chapter about cooperation. It illustrates the New Testament truth concerning the body of Christ. First Corinthians 12, Romans 12, and other chapters teach that believers in Christ are part of a worldwide body made up of many members. We belong to each other, and so we are to help one another and bear one another’s burdens. This is portrayed in a very dramatic way throughout this chapter.
We learn from the New Testament that there are two things you cannot say any longer when you become a Christian. The first is, You do not need me. Everyone in the body of Christ needs everyone else. The second thing is, I do not need you. You do need others! It is the awareness of that truth that makes a church a living, warm, vital, loving fellowship.
In the summoning of the people of Jerusalem to rebuild their walls and their gates, we learn that all the people were involved in the project. That portrays for us an important principle of the New Testament: that the ministry of the church belongs to everyone in the congregation. Often people think that only the pastor and the hired staff are to do the work of evangelizing, teaching, counseling, healing the hurts of others, and serving the needy. Because we have followed that practice far too long, the church is in trouble all over the world. But the ministry belongs to the whole congregation. I do not know any truth more important for the accomplishing of God’s work than that. Yet in church after church, it is difficult to get people to understand that. You have the great privilege of reaching out in your own neighborhood and doing the work of the ministry there. Where churches do not understand that, one finds a very distorted condition. People have no ministry of their own and, therefore, little excitement or interest in life.
Ray Stedman
A Daily Devotion For Autust 7th
‘The Need For Each Other’