Today, in the United States, we celebrate our independence day. It seems fitting, as we read in Nehemiah chapter 2, verses 17 through 20, we see Nehemiah making an Declaration of Independence of sorts. Nehemiah finally shares his grand plan with the people and explains his purpose for coming. He wants them to know that God has given them all a job to do and they all need to work together to fulfill it. Of course, there is opposition. Those people who do not want to see God’s work done begin to speak against it. Nehemiah comes out and explains, very briefly, exactly what it is that he’s doing and…

Nehemiah maintained single-minded focus. As we look at the next section in Nehemiah chapter 2, we look through verses 9 through 16 and we see that even though Nehemiah was coming with a great plan, he still was facing opposition. He has enemies and people who do not want to see him succeed. More than that, he didn’t even tell the people why he was there at first. He went out and did his surveying alone and in secret. Why? Nehemiah didn’t want anyone to distract him by telling him how impossible the task was or how hard things would be. He didn’t want anybody to get in his way.…

Nehemiah had a plan. As we continue in Nehemiah chapter 2, we look at verses one through eight and we see that while Nehemiah had spent all of the last chapter praying, he had also be formulating a plan. He had no idea whether he would have an opportunity to do anything with his plan, but God worked things out so that the King was the one who brought up the situation and the King asked Nehemiah what he was like to have happened. When we are praying, we should expect that God is going to utilize us to be part of the answer. Now, this doesn’t always happen, but…

As we look at the remainder of Nehemiah chapter 1, we see in Verses 4 through 11 that Nehemiah has taken the information that has been given to him and begins to pray. He is deeply moved by the situation that his brother brings to him. He’s so moved that he fasts and prays for days and these 8 versus share the core of his prayer. He pours out his heart to God, burdened by the situation that he was told about. When we find ourselves faced with difficult circumstances or when we see people in need, how do we respond? Are we deeply burdened to the place where we…

Today, we’re going to move to a new book. We’ll head back to the Old Testament and to the book of Nehemiah. As we start out today, we’re looking at chapter 1, verses 1 through 3. These verses really set the stage for the entire book of Nehemiah. As you read through these versus, we seen Nehemiah going about his daily life. He encounters his brother and some of his brother’s friends who have just returned from Jerusalem, so Nehemiah asks them about Jerusalem and the people there and how things are going. His brother gives him a very disheartening report of the state of events for the people in…