May 11, 2010 - Thorough Clean Up

Meditation on Nehemiah 13

In this closing chapter, Nehemiah told us how he continued to clean up the spiritual disobedience of the remnants. He set up rules to prevent the merchants from selling things on the Sabbath. He arranged people to make sure that the Sabbath was being honored by all. He made sure that the Levites and priests were being provided according to God's law. He reminded the people of God not to marry the unbelievers.

When Nehemiah took time off to go back to serve the Persian King, the remnants in the land of Judah were not keeping God's law as they had promised. When he came back, he straightened out all their evil deeds. Some former enemies of the Israelis saw that the remnants had accomplished their rebuilding of Jerusalem and settled down there. So they changed their tactics and joined in the Jewish community by getting their children to marry the Jews. One of the high priests had even prepared a huge living room in the temple for a former opponent of Jerusalem because of a marriage relationship. When Nehemiah found out about that, he threw away all the furniture and put back in there all the holy materials for the temple. The party that married the heathen was chased out also.

God's community must be pure. God's house must be cleaned. Nehemiah, the great leader made sure his goal was accomplished according to God's standard. What about your life as a Christian? Have you cleaned up all the dirty laundry yet?