Nehemiah Chapter 13. Be a great spiritual leader.
It's amazing how once a righteous leader is removed or one is isolated from a righteous leader, that we see people begin to make decisions that are not good spiritually.
1. Our ultimate leader is God. Remove his Word from your presence and it becomes easier to make decisions excluding God. It's easy to go astray spiritually.
2. Isolate yourself from church or Christian fellowship and it becomes easy to compromise one's Faith with the world.
3. If the spiritual leader of a household quits promoting God in his family, then it's really easy to see family members start to conform to the pattern of this world.
Because of all the pressures of this world, it's easy to fall into sin and compromise. Therefore we can't afford to neglect our God, his Word and the fellowship of other believers both in and out of church.
Lord please help me not to lose focus of you and the calling you have on my life as a spiritual leader.
18 Didn’t your ancestors do the same things, so that our God brought all this calamity on us and on this city? Now you are stirring up more wrath against Israel by desecrating the Sabbath.”
This verse stood out to me because I sometimes think about how awful things happen all over the world and I wonder about God’s wrath. I feel so torn about if God does bring punishment to his people who sin and live against Him or if he does not actually bring the calamity the world faces. It causes me to fall into a cycle of worrying and trying to “perform”, make up for, or remedy my sins. I want to change my heart from fear, to being free. I know the things I do in faith will set me free, and I want that freedom to motivate me to live for the Lord, not fear.
I was reminded today of Romans 12:2.
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”