REMEMBER

Today’s Reading: Nehemiah 13

Click scripture link to read online or HERE to listen online (then click the symbol of the audio speaker above the scripture portion).

This olive tree is just outside the ancient city walls of the City of David in Jerusalem. Science has determined that olive trees can live and produce olives well over 2,000 years. Perhaps Jesus picked an olive from this tree’s branches.

GOOGLE MAPS – To see where the photo was taken, click HERE.

Key Verse: Nehemiah 13:2b, 13:31b

Our God turned the curse into a blessing….Remember me, O my God, for good!

God takes any bad situation and turns it into good as we pray fervently about it, trust Him, and then make a full commitment to His will being done! He turns a curse into a blessing!

God does remember, but He does not remember our sins which we have confessed and for which we have been forgiven (Hebrews 8:10-13). A few days ago we were reminded that “a book of remembrance” is kept by God. Malachi was there in Nehemiah’s time and he wrote about that book. We can be sure God heard and answered Nehemiah’s prayer (Malachi 3:16-18).

Things were very different under the first covenant. Under the New Covenant (read Jeremiah 31:31-34) there are big changes. We start tomorrow, God willing, in the book of Colossians. We’ll learn that this church was coming under bondage to the rules and regulations of the Old Covenant, over-emphasis on the observance of sacred days, and religious forms and regulations. Let us not miss the next three days, and then we expect to begin our consideration of the book of Esther.

PRAYER FOR TODAY:

Thank You, Lord, that You have not shut the gates to any person anywhere at any time in these days of the New Covenant. You have invited me to come “boldly to Your throne of grace.” There I receive mercy and help in my time of need (Hebrews 4:14-16). I pray for grace to do this without fail every day. Lord Jesus, You are the Door by which we enter, and I pray these things in Your name, Amen! (John 10:7-10).

100 PERSONAL WORDS:

I’m aware from the records that this blog has new readers. Therefore, I want to tell again about the most important thing that ever happened to me. I found that God did not shut the gates on me as Nehemiah did on the non-Jews during the Sabbath. I was 16 when I went forward at the invitation of an evangelist who was preaching in the Glebe Collegiate Auditorium in Ottawa. There, an elderly man gave me the sentence spoken by Jesus which turned my life around. He opened his Bible to John 6:37 and asked me to read it out loud to him. I read, “The one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.” He said, “Now David (he had asked my name already), you have come to Jesus, right?” “Yes” I said. Then he asked me, “What does Jesus do?” I answered, “He receives me.” Immediately, the light in my spirit turned on. I knew that I was not rejected by God but accepted by Him. I believed this fact. The next day, in order to confirm what had happened to me, I walked down to the stream behind my sister’s house, where I was staying, and repeated that promise of Jesus over and over. I’ve never doubted since that time that this most unworthy sinner had been accepted by God into His eternal family.

Yours for assurance that in the New Covenant God does not shut the gates on anyone who comes to Him,

David