Taking On A Dangerous Assignment

After the repair of the Temple, the children of Israel began to rebuild the wall around the city of Jerusalem. I've heard many teachings equating the repair of the gates to the repair of the human soul by the power of the Holy Spirit. Today I won't address that, but the process of undertaking that repair job at all.

When the Apostle Paul talks about the process of changing a life that has been renewed through the blood of Jesus Christ he uses a word that means "renovation." It's a good word when you look at what was happening in Jerusalem. The wall had been torn down and left in rubble. It's worse than if you started with nothing on the ground. If you ever watch "Extreme Makeover Home Edition" you see them go in and literally tear a house down, leaving a huge pile of junk on the ground. Until they clear that out of the way the work cannot continue.

There are a lot of analogies to the human soul or spirit as well. We are born with a nature that is i opposition to God. This old nature is killed when we come to Christ but like a corpse on an autopsy table, doesn't just go away. In fact there is a lot of junk left over in our lives - old habits, attitudes, negative experiences, sins, consequences from actions, etc.

Picking around all that rubble in order to rebuild our lives around the strength of the Spirit can be dangerous and arduous. What I noticed today was how the enemies of Israel tried to discourage the work. They tried questioning motivations, to threatening attack - anything to keep them from going on.

For us, that old nature and the Devil will try to discourage us from continuing the work of renovation in our lives, which is generally seeking God to rebuild our character into one that reflects His character.

So what did Israel do? In Nehemiah 4:17 "Those that carried burdens were loaded in such a way that each labored on the work with one hand and held his weapon with the other." So they worked while ready at any moment to defend their right to work.

For us, we need to be prepared to defend our right to allow God renovate our lives. It is easy to become discouraged as we see those around us continuing in sin and enjoying it. It is easy to give up when the enemy shouts at us that we can never succeed, whispers in our ears that it would be easier to give in than to keep working, or attacks us to scare us into stopping.

My encouragement to us all is not to listen, but be ready with the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, to answer back "he who has begun a good work in you will continue it."

Pastor Tom