the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 2 of 5
Nehemiah 1:1-11
Historically the book of Nehemiah is the last view which the Old Testament allows us to have of the people of Israel. The events recorded in it begin about thirty years after those related in the book of Esther, and thirteen years after the return of Ezra. As a result its teaching is particularly relevant to us Christians "upon whom the ends of the world are come" (1 Corinthians 10:11). How wretched the people are! They are in "great affliction and reproach" according to the account given by the few travellers (v. 3). But God has prepared someone who will take this situation to heart. It is Nehemiah! This man is sensitive to the sufferings and humiliation of those left over from the captivity and he confesses before the LORD the sins which caused their condition. Ezra had done the same (Ezra 9). It is always from amongst those who love His people that God chooses the instruments through whom He delivers.
But let us fix our eyes on someone greater than Nehemiah. Who has taken to heart the desperate condition of Israel and mankind in general if not the Son of God Himself? He plumbed to the depths our wretched state, that abyss of sin into which we had fallen. And He came to rescue us from it.
