It’s almost never the wrong time to reassess how we’re getting on. Our western culture likes to do it at the start of each year, but it can be helpful to do at other times too:
Last Sunday morning we continued to see Nehemiah and his colleagues doing that, having finished rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. In the light of what they heard from God’s Word, they sought to recommit themselves to Him. Yet having confessed their sin in ch 9 their only solution was to renew the covenant in ch 10, which we might sadly summarise as “we’ll try harder”!
If they had known their history, they would have known this was the 5th or more time that God’s people had ‘tried harder’ and every time (including this one as we’ll see in due course) they had failed!
In addition, Nehemiah & co owned their responsibilities as a community to provide support for the staff who ran the temple worship of God. It was generous, but they would eventually fail at that too.
“Trying harder”, owning responsibility, it’s always a good response but rarely an adequate one. What more could they (and we?) do?
Had they listened to the prophets, they would have seen the answer that Jeremiah promised of a new covenant:
“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,”
declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
(Jer 31:33)
What they again proved they needed was new hearts! We now know that’s what trusting Jesus gives: Not just the motivation to try harder, but the forgiveness, love and grace to live for Him continually.
Spencer Shaw