- Don’t forget about our upcoming outreach series entitled, “Social!” This is the perfect time to invite the friend, neighbor, co-worker or family member (who does not yet know Jesus as Lord and Savior) to GCC. The gospel will be going out in a clear and compelling way during this series and we are trusting God to bring in the harvest!
- I am absolutely loving our study through the book of Nehemiah called, “The Wall.” If you want to to listen to the entire series you can get the GCC App on iTunes or for android and then download all the messages. You’ll be glad you did–It’s the greatest book on leadership ever written!
- How did everyone do with the Nehemiah Reading plan? You should be on the home stretch by now, but if not, you can still jump in at any time. Simply get the Youversion app and search for the “Restart: Stepping Out in Faith” study and that’s all there is to it. You can even set Youversion to send you a reminder every day so that you don’t forget. We’re looking a lot at opposition at this point in our series and the reading plan devotional had some good reminders for Christ followers so that they don’t get discouraged in serving the Lord.
First of all we should never think for a second that our enemies are going to simply stand by and watch you do great things for Jesus. How can they? They hate God. Whenever you do something great for God the devil will be waiting for an opportunity to attack you–and most likely it will be at the point where you are the most vulnerable. Here’s what the reading plan devotional had to say on day six…
“Building a wall for the city if Jerusalem was a formidable task. Nehemiah knew it. As the workers laid stone upon stone, their enemies hurled insults at them. The adage that says, “Sticks and stones my break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” is simply not true. Words hurt. They hurt the shepherd boy, David, when he heard the giant Goliath taunting God’s people. Those words made him spring into action (I Samuel 17:26-32). Now Sandballet and others used words to hurt Nehemiah and the building crew. It hurt enough to compel Nehemiah to take time out to pray…a curse on them! He didn’t retaliate, he didn’t render evil for evil, he used the arsenal he had–prayer!”
Several years ago I encountered some Sandballets of my own. A group of about four guys who sought to bring down a great work of the Lord at one of the churches I planted. They didn’t care about the Kingdom. They had no concern with the body of Christ. They simply wanted–like Sandballet and Tobiah–to control others for self gain. Everything in my human nature wanted to retaliate, but the Lord kept telling me to give it to Him instead. Each time the righteous anger would well up in my soul I would commit it to God rather than retaliate. After all, “vengeance is Mine,” God says. And since it’s His, it can’t also be mine. So, rather then taking matters into my own hands, I prayed each time I felt the anger. And I prayed specifically–much like King David often did and just like Nehemiah did in chapter three. I prayed that God would remove them–each one of them. One by one until they were far from the church they sought to ruin.
Guess what?
He did. All four. In no time flat. And He did a far better job at judging the situation than I ever could have.
As for me? Well, I got to stay on the wall with an awesome group of people and see yet another great work of God make incredible Kingdom impact. That makes it all worth it!
Are you attempting great things for God? Is there opposition that’s getting you down?
Don’t let it!
Stay on the wall and let God take care of the haters. Before you know it, they will be gone and you will have partnered with God to change the world!