DAY 168

CONVICTION

Nehemiah 7, 8 & 9 and Acts 3

What to say about chapters 7 – 9 of Nehemiah? Nehemiah has Ezra, the priest, read the law. People are moved over what they hear, so much so that they weep. I love the command to the people, “Do not weep for this day is holy to the Lord.” Days that are holy to the Lord are to be days of celebration! The people are strongly convicted by what they read, it causes them to change their entire attitude about how they are to live. Chapter nine closes with the leaders signing a sealed covenant to God.

In the New Testament we read of two similarly convicted people: Peter and John. Going up during prayer they come across a man who is lame; unable to walk he is begging for money. Perhaps one of the most remembered verses of the Bible then happens. “Gold and silver I have not, but what I do have I give you, in the Name of Jesus of Nazareth, arise and walk” and the man does!

Peter and John had the Holy Spirit: we have the Holy Spirit. I am not sure that you are I could make such a command, but why not? Do we have the conviction to follow God, to follow Jesus the way we read of today? It requires turning your world upside down, or maybe a better way to say it, is having God turn us upside down. When He does, will we “go for it?”