Old Jerry

I think that the meaning of “fear God” is to be respectful of the things that He has done for us. We are to reverence Him and not use His name in vain. This to me is the meaning in the Old Testament days and as Christian believers today. Our fear of God interfaces with our love for God because we respect Him. Our love for God changes the fear because we love Him.

The people and priests disrespected God with their offering sacrifices when they brought defected animals to be sacrificed. The way that we disrespect God in our attitude toward worship is we give to God out of what we have left not giving Him our first fruits. God is saying that I need to give my very best.

I think that you should respond to people you are ministering to who disappoint you by doing what God wants you to do. You have no control over the other person. You can talk to them so that they know you are disappointed in them, but that is about all you can do. But in times like that it is best to go to God in prayer.

God does set higher standards for leaders then for others because we are supposed to follow our leaders. If the leaders are running astray, then the followers will probably run astray. The best way that I know to keep this from happening to me is to read the Bible and follow Jesus. Take the things that the leaders are telling you and bounce it against the Bible. The best way to recover from the corruption that God has shown you is to pray for help and repent.

I think that God’s compassion is emphasized so strongly in Israel’s history because they seem to always be breaking the law and in order to stay in God’s grace, God had to be compassionate. The reason that we might be going through a tough discipline is because we were doing things against God’s will and He was being compassionate by correcting us. I think that God giving us his one and only son to die for our sins is the most compassionate thing that God has done for us.

The reason that Scripture brings such sorrow to the people is because they didn’t know the laws of God and when they understood the law they knew that they had been sinning. Scripture reading is so important to personal spiritual revival because we forget what it says and when we do read it we will realize that we had been sinning. When we read the scriptures that brings us back to God. It is the Spirit that stirs up in us the need to read the scriptures. We know that we can have joy even after we had sinned and have repented because we know that God has compassion and love for us.

Nehemiah’s enemies wants him to travel away from Jerusalem so they can do some harm to him. They bribed the prophets so that it will discredit Nehemiah. If they can discredit him them he would lose those who had been working on the wall and will be able to stop the work.

Nehemiah responded to his enemies’ ridicule by ignoring them. The military threats he decides to put a guard in the more vulnerable places and arms the workers. By doing this it must have cut the construction production in half. Nehemiah respond to discouragement and fear in the people by he tell them to go the Lord in prayer. When I get discouraged I get down in the dumps but then after a while I will turn to the Lord like I should have all the time.

Nehemiah built the walls quickly in order to keep the enemies out of the way and to keep the ones against him from being able to complain to the king. He assigns a lot of teams so that he can complete the walls quickly. It also makes a big project like that look small one. There would be a lot of problems, for instance logistics, materials, tools, and managers.

Nehemiah is in danger of losing his life or being banned from the king. He prays quickly and silently before he answers because he want to have the courage to answer the question with the right attitude. The “arrow prayer” is like a candle on a cake. He took four months to look for God’s support and this was just topping it off.

The way that Nehemiah’s situation compare to Ester’s is that they both have to come before the king and ask for a favor. There were only supposed to appear before the king when they are asked to and neither one was. God places his people in strategic positions today because He knows that we will do his will. Our responsibilities to God is to make disciples for Jesus. I have been a position like this and I had to pray for that situation for a while before I approached that situation.

Nehemiah appealed to God because the servants had been gathered together by Him when they escaped Egypt. He had been the one that had been watching out for them. They had repented and were praying to Him again. We have learned that intercession is a very important part of our prayer live.

Nehemiah is praying day and night for four months because he is trying to get closer to God. He is fasting and weeping because he is sad that Israel still had broken walls. Trying to get closer to God is never excessive.

I do think that Shecaniah’s solution to the people’s sin of intermarriage was from God. The people were following other gods and it was probably their spouses that were encouraging them to do so. The book of Kings is full of prophetic “words of wisdom” directing God’s people at a crisis point. The people seem to accept Shecaniah’s radical solution and Ezra implements it by having the people say an oath to carry it out.

When Ezra heard of the sin of intermarriage was going on he was very distraught. He reacted appropriately for that period of time. He was grieving for the sins of the people. I think that the reason we don’t want to grieve over the sins of God’s people is that we don’t want to be judgmental.

Ezra weighs out the gold and silver even though he entrusts the individuals because sometime greed overruns the conscience mind. It is not an act of distrust is just keeping honest people honest.

Ezra called the people to fast because it will draw them closer to God. Fasting does not compel God to answer our prayers it just shows that we are dependent on Him. Fasting just brings us closer to God.

We Christians look upon Jesus right now and mourn. But I don’t think that Jews will do that until Jesus returns the second time. Right now we Christians have that fountain that cleanses us from sin and impurity. But for the Jews that is a future promise. It will please God when all the Jews finally believe in Jesus because that is His son whom He loved so much that He sent down to earth for our sins.

The leaders are supposed to lead us to God. When they decide to take advantage of us then they are leading us away from God. Jesus’ standard for leaders is to be a servant and a slave to all. If we followed Jesus’ standard this would be a great place to live but since we are here temporarily that isn’t going to happen until Jesus returns.

To operate from a policy of mercy and compassion is to love those who dislike you. If you can do that then that will have mercy and compassion. I don’t think that the poor are treated justly in our courts. The rich are able to hire more sophisticated lawyers then poor can. They can only get those that are willing to work for them for nothing. I treat aliens like I do anybody else. I don’t differentiate from an alien from a citizen. The truth is important to God because we have got to believe in others. When we lie to each other then there is no confidence in what they are saying and therefore they will not be able to pass on the word of God.

We have done it in the way that you said about Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. The only thing that we think about on the first two celebrations is ourselves and what we will get. We should evaluate our churches and our worship patterns as to what we are giving back to God. We can make our personal worship a matter of the heart by joyfully giving back to God the things that He has given to us.

I think that the reason that we fall into the trap of trying to do God’s work with our own strength is because first of all we think that we know more. We think that we have got all the answers. The meaning of “not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit” means we should go to God to direct us in our efforts. We can apply this truth to our lives by slowing down and listening to God.

Joshua’s filthy clothes represents his sins. God deals with this sin by forgiving him. The message that this prophecy intend to convey to Joshua the High Priest is the He is in for forgiving business. The same message can apply to our Christian leaders who have sinned.

I think that the prophet calls to be still before God so that God can convey His message to them. In the context of God aroused to protect his people from attack, silence is appropriate because we have got to listen to God especially when we are depending on Him to fix our problems. I would have to thing for the enemy of God silence represents that something terrible is going to happen to them. For believers silence before God represents respect for Him.

Repentance from sin is important part of the Gospel because when you do you will be getting closer to God. If we remove repentance from the core message of Jesus then we will not get right with God. We will think that we can do anything and don’t have to worry about the consequences. God already knows the sins that I have committed he just wants me to acknowledge them.