{"id":4997,"date":"2023-09-06T14:25:32","date_gmt":"2023-09-06T19:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=4997"},"modified":"2023-09-06T14:25:32","modified_gmt":"2023-09-06T19:25:32","slug":"devotional-on-nehemiah-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-nehemiah-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Nehemiah"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-1ecCLldtDks\/XvZb2w0q4SI\/AAAAAAABFU4\/r0atfvrM6GI0ZFw9lf0lIzWYNd03eXdtQCPcBGAsYHg\/s1600\/IMG_7673.JPG\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1200\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2018 &#8211; Cades Cove &#8211; Smoky Mountains National Park<\/figcaption><\/figure>When the enemy throws everything at you<br \/>\nNehemiah 6: I prayed, &#8220;Give me strength.&#8221;<br \/>\nAs the rebuilding project nears completion the enemies of Nehemiah desperately try to stop it. Since Nehemiah doesn&#8217;t fall for their &#8220;let&#8217;s meet&#8221; ploy they try slandering him. Their rumor is that Nehemiah\u2019s about to set up a private kingdom behind the walls of Jerusalem and they threaten to send this word to Artaxerxes, himself. Nehemiah can&#8217;t stop them from their lies, but he can pray. Their next effort is to hire Shemaish son of Delaiah to pose as a prophet of God. Shemaish comes to Nehemiah pretending to be his friend. He\u2019s heard from God that this very night people are coming to take his life. According to Shemaish, Nehemiah&#8217;s only hope is to hide in the part of the Temple reserved only for priests of God. It\u2019s there that he\u2019ll be safe. In spite of the credibility of this warning, Nehemiah decides that this &#8220;prophecy&#8221; doesn&#8217;t add up. For one thing, he\u2019s not a priest and his going into that part of the Temple would be an act of desecration. Nehemiah refuses to cooperate and continues rebuilding the wall. The effort of Tobiah and Sanballat to stop Nehemiah from doing what God called him to do serves as a sort of spiritual warfare field manual for us. The enemy of our souls uses all these ploys to distract us from serving the Lord. First, they mock Nehemiah and his crew, telling them that they\u2019ll never be able to finish what they\u2019ve started. When that fails, they threaten them with personal violence. Next, they pretend compromise. After that there are lies and insinuation. Finally, they pretend to be the Voice of God. Nehemiah&#8217;s defenses are: a firm belief that he\u2019s doing God&#8217;s will, absolute commitment to the task, an abundance of common sense, and lots of prayer. Fifty-two days later, Jerusalem is once again a walled city.<br \/>\nTake Away: The more committed you are to doing the will of the Lord the more committed his enemies will be to stop you from doing just that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When the enemy throws everything at you Nehemiah 6: I prayed, &#8220;Give me strength.&#8221; As the rebuilding project nears completion the enemies of Nehemiah desperately try to stop it. Since Nehemiah doesn&#8217;t fall for their &#8220;let&#8217;s meet&#8221; ploy they try slandering him. Their rumor is that Nehemiah\u2019s about to set up a private kingdom behind [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1521,7],"tags":[144,342,787,845,1027,1087],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4997"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4997"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14658,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4997\/revisions\/14658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}