I praise God that He is so good! All the time! On Sunday morning we compared Nehemiah 13 and the “reformation” that Nehemiah was promoting for Jerusalem and Israel to the reformation that needs to take place in our lives continuously. Nehemiah starts out with a need to be separate from the world, to be different for God, an need to not let mixture into the church or the life of the believer. A “Mixed Multitude” is when a Christian lets sin enter his life and does not treat it as his enemy. A “Mixed Multitude” is when the church does not teach the cost of discipleship and is then full of people claiming to be Christians who have never given their lives to Jesus Christ.
2Pe 1:10 NIV Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble,
Nehemiah then talks about the enemy that has come in and the need to remove the intruder, to purify the house, to not neglect the house of God. All important steps in our lives. When the enemy slips in, time with God goes out the window and we neglect times of worship, times of reading, times of communication with God, we neglect time with God’s people. And then we wonder how it happened. We need to recommit to purity in our lives.
We need to be careful not to neglect God and His calling in our lives. Our enemy is no politics, it is not the removal of prayer in school, it is not the “big” things we think about, but the real enemy to the Christian today is subtle sins like pride, envy, jealousy, selfishness, lust and greed, that infiltrate the Christian’s life and the church like a virus and produce ineffective, apathetic, complacent and lazy Christians who have no idea what it means to die to self and live for God.
The Times-Reporter of New Philadelphia, Ohio, reported in September 1985 a celebration of a New Orleans municipal pool. The party around the pool was held to celebrate the first summer in memory without a drowning at the New Orleans city pool. In honor of the occasion, 200 people gathered, including 100 certified lifeguards. As the party was breaking up and the four lifeguards on duty began to clear the pool, they found a fully dressed body in the deep end. They tried to revive Jerome Moody, 31, but it was too late. He had drowned surrounded by lifeguards celebrating their successful season.
Don’t be like the apathetic lifeguards, keep pressing forward in our walk with God. Don’t let the enemy sneak in and push God out!
By: Pastor Art Speck
2Pe 1:10 NIV Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble,
Nehemiah then talks about the enemy that has come in and the need to remove the intruder, to purify the house, to not neglect the house of God. All important steps in our lives. When the enemy slips in, time with God goes out the window and we neglect times of worship, times of reading, times of communication with God, we neglect time with God’s people. And then we wonder how it happened. We need to recommit to purity in our lives.
We need to be careful not to neglect God and His calling in our lives. Our enemy is no politics, it is not the removal of prayer in school, it is not the “big” things we think about, but the real enemy to the Christian today is subtle sins like pride, envy, jealousy, selfishness, lust and greed, that infiltrate the Christian’s life and the church like a virus and produce ineffective, apathetic, complacent and lazy Christians who have no idea what it means to die to self and live for God.
The Times-Reporter of New Philadelphia, Ohio, reported in September 1985 a celebration of a New Orleans municipal pool. The party around the pool was held to celebrate the first summer in memory without a drowning at the New Orleans city pool. In honor of the occasion, 200 people gathered, including 100 certified lifeguards. As the party was breaking up and the four lifeguards on duty began to clear the pool, they found a fully dressed body in the deep end. They tried to revive Jerome Moody, 31, but it was too late. He had drowned surrounded by lifeguards celebrating their successful season.
Don’t be like the apathetic lifeguards, keep pressing forward in our walk with God. Don’t let the enemy sneak in and push God out!
By: Pastor Art Speck
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