Read: Nehemiah 9
Verses chosen for meditation:
36 Behold, we are slaves this day; in the land that you gave to our fathers to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts, behold, we are slaves.
Reflect
It is said that the beginning of any transformation is the humbled conviction that we need it in the first place. On this day where the exiled grieved and confessed their sin, they did not merely blamed it on the forefathers.
They owned their iniquities and had the conviction to change. They recognised that even though the Persian kings had allowed them to go back to Israel; they were still slaves. They were slaves reliant on the good graces of a foreign power. They were slaves chained to their current practices; a far cry from the days where they had the freedom to worship Yahweh.
And so the Levites led the people to pray and repent. Later on, in the Chapter 10, we are told they made a written covenant with God to put what they prayed into action. They wanted to be freed from slavery to the foreign powers and rebuild Jerusalem to what she once was or even better. They wanted to be freed from spiritual slavery where idol worship and ungodly desires had bent their knees to Baal.
Relate
For the modern day Christians living in the age of the Gospel; do we need to have that humbled conviction to be transformed?
Definitely! The Bible says that we can always seek to be transformed more and more like Christ. It is a matter of whether we are sincere and humble enough to have that conviction to put our words and thoughts into action. We might think that we cannot since we tried. Yet, if we do it with our own intelligence and strength; surely spiritual slavery will surely continue.
No. Spiritual slavery needs to be broken with spiritual power. Spiritual power to free us from such a dire situation can only come from God. Hence, the only way is for us to allow God to have His way in our life. This is a kind of active "passiveness" where we surrender to the godly power of transformation and yet not struggle to have it our way.
It is not easy. As we read further into Nehemiah, he was disappointed that after 12 years, many of the people and leaders went back to idolatry and lust of the flesh. Yet, we are in a much better place than the exiled. We have Christ as our banner and strength. We have the Holy Spirit to teach, convict and empower. We have the Father to remind that He is love and so He will do what is necessary to bring us back to His embrace.
So let us be encouraged and heed Paul's exhortation in Romans 6:4-7: "As Christ was brought back from death to life by the glorious power of the Father, so we, too, should live a new kind of life. 5 If we’ve become united with him in a death like his, certainly we will also be united with him when we come back to life as he did. 6 We know that the person we used to be was crucified with him to put an end to sin in our bodies. Because of this we are no longer slaves to sin. 7 The person who has died has been freed from sin.
Rest
Take time to listen to this song: No Longer Slaves
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8TkUMJtK5k
Jason
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