Dealing with Discouragement
Are you stuck in discouragement? Nehemiah’s prayer in Nehemiah 1:4-11 gives you a model to leave discouragement behind, by remembering God and his promises. As we drove through Wyoming, my husband and I were amused at some of the creative—and somewhat inhospitable—names of places we saw along the way. Besides the famous “Devil’s Tower,” we […]
A Penitent Population
Read: Ezra 10:1-15 We have broken faith with our God . . . but even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this. (v. 2) When you drive past the rescue mission in my hometown, you see one word prominently displayed by the entrance. Hope is offered to those who come there. Sin is a destroyer, […]
Faith Comes Through Hearing
A Bhutanese woman champions the gospel in her home village with the help of audio Bible recordings. Following Christ’s Leading Many years ago, a lady named Choeden followed her husband away from their remote mountain village in Bhutan and traveled to a larger town in search of work. In the town, Choeden met a Christian […]
A Prayer of Confession
Read: Ezra 9 As soon as I heard this, I tore my garment and my cloak and pulled hair from my head and beard and sat appalled. (v. 3) The book of Ezra suddenly gets very personal! This section is written in the first person as Ezra shares his reaction to the news of the nation’s […]
A Priest’s Arrival
Read: Ezra 7:1-10 Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statutes. (v. 10) Eighty years after the first group of exiles had arrived to rebuild and resettle Jerusalem, another company of Jews returned to their homeland. This group included priests, singers, gatekeepers, and […]
A Passover Observed
Read: Ezra 6:13-22 And they kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread seven days with joy, for the Lord had made them joyful. (v. 22) Seventy years after Solomon’s temple was destroyed by the Babylonians, the new temple (called “Zerubbabel’s temple” by historians) was finished. It had taken 21 years from the laying of the foundation to […]
A Project Renewed
Read: Ezra 6:1-12 Concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, let the house be rebuilt. (v. 3) The work of rebuilding the temple of God and the city of Jerusalem came to a screeching halt with the edict from King Artaxerxes. For years no progress was made, and inertia settled over the project. Then the word […]
A Pernicious Lie
Read: Ezra 4:17-24 Then the work on the house of God that is in Jerusalem stopped. (v. 24) Alfred Lord Tennyson once wrote, “A lie that is half-truth is the darkest of all lies.” Certainly, it can be one of the most difficult to squelch. You can refute a blatant lie with the facts, but a […]
A Pattern of Opposition
Read: Ezra 4:1-16 Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and made them afraid to build. (v. 4) The apostle Peter reminds us, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you” (1 Peter 4:12). Still, we […]