So far this chapter has been one of extremes. We see an entire group of people excluded from the assembly of God and a man’s entire closet full of stuff is thrown out into the courtyard. All of this has been done to be obedient to God. In the midst of these extremes and extravagant decisions, happens something that would be even harder to confront than the first two. It starts in verse 10. “I also discovered that the Levites had not been given their prescribed portions of food, so they and the singers who were to conduct the worship services had all returned to work their fields.
Basically what’s happening so far is that the people aren’t tithing. If you want to read a great article by Tim Keller (love him!) about money, how all we have belongs to God and how important being generous is, go here.
Once Nehemiah realizes what’s going on, he immediately springs to action just like every other time their is disobedience towards God.
“I immediately confronted the leaders and demanded, “Why has the Temple of God been neglected?” Then I called all the Levites back again and restored them to their proper duties. And once more all the people of Judah began bringing their tithes of grain, new wine, and olive oil to the Temple storerooms.”
He has to confront people about MONEY and does so immediately! To me this shows the deep love Nehemiah has for the nation of Israel. All of us have had times in our life where we were not tithing like we are suppose to. But, nothing is more connected to our hearts than money. It’s mentioned 20x times more than sex in the Bible. Nehemiah realizes this and doesn’t want to see the nation of Israel lose sight of who and what’s important.
Do you view your money as your own? How does this affect your heart?
Do you view your wealth as a true gift and blessing from God? How does this affect your heart?
No comments:
Post a Comment