“They stood where they were and read from the Book of the Law of the Lord their God for a quarter of the day, and spent another quarter in confession…” Nehemiah 9:3
Do you wish there were less lying, cheating and stealing in the world? Do you look for a world today where people love each other unconditionally, treat each other with honor and respect no matter their view, and truly elevate others above themselves in doing so? Do you long for a world where people speak pure truth, absolute goodness, and abounding peace to each other? Well then, I have an exercise for you. Go to a nice sandy spot and draw a three-foot circle on the ground. And then step in. Now pray to God to do all those things within the heart that beats in that circle.
In Nehemiah chapter 9 we see the beginning of a sweeping revival. We see the people rocked to the core by the recognition of their own personal sin against God and against others. And the great conviction of their sin brings them to confession and repentance to Almighty God. And just how did they get to this point? They encountered the measuring stick of sin…God’s Word. We’re told in Nehemiah 9:3 that they corporately read from the Word of God for a quarter of the day. Folks, that’s 6 hours. And where did they read it? Right where they stood. Dead in their tracks. Friends, the Word of God will convict you of the sin in your life if you allow it to meet your heart right where it is. Don’t dress your heart up for church and then meet God’s Word. Don’t seal off your heart in prideful protection before you pick up your Bible. Allow God’s Word to meet your heart right where you are today. A heart of confession and repentance will be open to what the Word of God will do to it and still choose to sit under it. As the people sat with open hearts to the Lord’s commands they were convicted. They saw a radical mismatch. How they were living did not match up with what His Word said and as a result they all stepped into their own personal circle. They signed a physical covenant with God that day that declared they would start doing what His Word said. Notice they didn’t sign a covenant that said they would preach His message of repentance to the mean people around them. It didn’t say they would tell their jerk neighbors to shape up or ship out because God said so. It didn’t say they would bombast anyone on Facebook that didn’t agree with their political stance. It merely said they would start and end with the person in the circle.
Folks, today, don’t look to correct the sinful world around you, correct the sinful person in the circle. Do you have envy, pride, and selfishness in your heart? Allow God’s Word to work in your circle. Do you judge the work of other’s hands well before looking at your own? Allow God’s Word to work on the judgment in your circle. Do you have sexually impure thoughts? Allow God’s Word into your circle and confess them. Revival in our world today doesn’t start with a city, a state, a country, or a continent. It starts one circle at a time. It starts with individual lives that encounter God’s Word and are convicted to do what it says. It starts with circles all over the world meeting God and His Word right where they are and then allowing God’s Word to do what it does…convict hearts to clean up one day at a time and slowly become more like His Son Jesus Christ.
“yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.” 2 Corinthians 7:9-10
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