My recent posts based on Nehemiah 8 have focused us to pray that the Word of God might be restored to its rightful place in our churches.

• May we gather as one man to hear Your Word (Nehemiah 8)
• Give us ears to be attentive to Your words alone (Nehemiah 8:3)
• one sign of revival: attentiveness to the Word of God (Whitefield's Journals)
• "People cannot take preaching...People are dying through lack of knowledge." (ML-J)

As we look through the Word of God, we can't help but see how much God values and treasures His Word, and we ought to do the same. So much of the Church today has been guilty of not treasuring the Word and not giving the Word of God its rightful place. That's why I am continuing to post on this theme (and expect to continue to do so with at least a couple more posts from Nehemiah in the coming days, D.V.). If we don't have our foundation set rightly in the Word of God, we will end up going all wrong. In the past several years, we've certainly reaped what we've sown; we've seen the sorry fruit of that over the past many years now.

For today's post I'm returning once again to Nehemiah 8.

As you read and reflect on the passage below, please notice how the ministers of God were used by God to read and teach the Word of God to give understanding to the people of God. (You may also like to read my related posts here, here, here and here.)

Lord God,

We are Your people. The sheep of Your pasture. We thank You that while we had gone astray each to our own way, You laid our sin on Jesus Christ, the Lamb without blemish. We thank You for redeeming us with His precious blood. We thank You for giving us the gift of Your Word to sustain us day in and day out.

We are Your people. You have given us Your Word, but apart from Your Holy Spirit we can have no true and right understanding of Your Word. As we read and listen to Your Word, we pray You would continually guide us, protect us from error and lead us into all truth.

We are Your people. You have given us Your Word. In addition to Your Holy Spirit, You have ordained and gifted and sent men and women today in the Church to give us understanding from Your Word. We pray You would protect those You send from error and lead them into all truth. We pray You would give us ears to hear Your voice and to flee from the voice of strangers.

We see in Nehemiah 8 how You ordained and sent and gifted leaders who

We pray You would send us such ministers today!

We confess how so many of our leaders no longer read from the Book at all! Preachers and teachers in the church and parachurch organizations look to their own ideas or to the words of men in other books or on television or the internet. They go everywhere else for messages but to You, O Lord. O, how foolish we are! You alone have the Words of life. So many confer with other men but they have neglected to sit and commune with You, living God, and listen to You speak to them through Your precious Word. We confess there are so many leaders out there who center and ground their teaching on any and all things but Your precious, life-giving, life-changing Word.

Forgive us, Word of God, for neglecting the holiness and the absolute centrality of Your precious Word.
Be gracious to us. Restore Your Word to its rightful place in our churches.
We are Your people. The sheep of Your pasture. We are hungry for true and living Bread.
Send us ministers after Your own heart,
ministers who love You and Your Word,
ministers who will

We confess how so many of our leaders may read from the Book but they do not read from the Book clearly! Forgive us, Word of God. We confess how so many of our leaders have taken Your wholesome words and made them unwholesome. They have taken the living waters and made them stagnant. There is no life in the words they speak. They have not preached Your Word with authority. They have not preached Your Word with Your Holy Spirit power. They have not preached Your Word as if it were truth. They preach no differently than Pilate who asked our Lord, "What is truth?" They preach as if the Bible is just another book and its teachings not authoritative or vital to us. So many make no clear distinction between the broad way that leads to destruction and the narrow, straight gate that leads to life.

Forgive us, Word of God, for devaluing the authority and uniqueness of Your precious Word.
Be gracious to us. Restore Your Word to its rightful place in our churches.
We are Your people. The sheep of Your pasture. We are hungry for true and living Bread.
Send us ministers after Your own heart,
ministers who love You and Your Word,
ministers who will

We confess how so many of our leaders no longer give the sense as they preach and teach but rather they end up confusing their hearers! We confess how so much preaching and teaching today does not clearly lift up Jesus Christ as the way, the truth and the life. Your Gospel is to be proclaimed, not to be debated. The Word of God is to be expounded, to show forth Christ clearly from beginning to end. Satan is a deceiver and a liar and the father of lies. The devil wants to keep people blinded and entangled by his lies. Misinformation, disinformation and confusion are his specialties. He delights to keep people wrapped up in his kingdom of darkness, in the shadows, in confusion, without a true sense of reality, blinded and unable to see the light of Your glorious Gospel and hear the good news of great joy proclaimed. Your Word is to be preached and taught clearly so it might bring light to those in darkness, to set the prisoners free, to bring oil of joy for mourning. Yet how often is the Gospel message clouded and blurred today, so no sense is given, but only nonsense is taught and souls remain lost and in the dark, apart from You, the true Light. So many who sit under such teaching never understand their true spiritual condition: that they are lost sinners with no hope apart from the Gospel. How can lost sinners believe on Christ unless they hear preaching that gives the sense?

Forgive us, Word of God, for obscuring the light and truth of Your precious Word.
Be gracious to us. Restore Your Word to its rightful place in our churches.
We are Your people. The sheep of Your pasture. We are hungry for true and living Bread.
Send us ministers after Your own heart,
ministers who love You and Your Word,
ministers who will

We confess how so many of our leaders do not impart understanding to their hearers! We confess that some leaders have been enamored with intellect and scholarship and the esteem of men that they no longer preach the simple message of Christ and Him crucified. We confess that other leaders have added layers and layers upon the simplicity of the Gospel, to confound it, to make the Gospel about us and our works rather than about Jesus Christ and His work done for us on the cross and continuing in us through His Holy Spirit. You, Lord of the universe, invited the little children to come to You. Even the common people heard You, Lord. The glorious Gospel is foolishness to the world, but to those being saved it is the power of God. Yet today we confess that so much of what is preached and taught complicates, confuses, clouds and confounds those who hear it. So many leaders today do not clearly lead and shepherd the hungry sheep into green pastures and the thirsty sheep to still waters. We confess so many of our leaders no longer impart understanding of Your Word to Your people, but rather cause much misunderstanding, so the flock remains hungry and thirsty. Our leaders neglect to clearly proclaim that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only power to save sinners; that Christ is our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.

Forgive us, Word of God, for being ashamed of and stumbling at the simple wisdom of Your precious Word.
Be gracious to us. Restore Your Word to its rightful place in our churches.
We are Your people. The sheep of Your pasture. We are hungry for true and living Bread.
Send us ministers after Your own heart,
ministers who love You and Your Word,
ministers who will

In my last post "why deerlife?..." I let you know that I started up deerlife, another blog for mutual encouragement, edification and support in ministry.

Today's post is a repost of something I put up on deerlife a few days ago here. I feel this message is an important one for those of us who have prayed and seem to see no visible results of our prayers. It is also a message for those of us who are tempted to believe that God cannot work through a single soul to accomplish great things for His Kingdom.

Over the past couple weeks I've been feeling weak and weary, and I know full well we all face that same temptation. Our spirits are willing, but the flesh is weak. But as we remember who God is and the resurrection power we have been given through the cross by the gift of His Spirit, as we continue to gaze upon Him and His purposes for us and for His Church, we can take heart and run the race set before us – no matter what we see. We can continue to preach the word in season and out of season and to pray without ceasing.

Though I may not be posting here so regularly at the moment, know that my heart is seeking revival and I am continuing to go to the throne of grace as God strengthens me. I know God has given others out there a similar burden to pray for revival. As I have said so many other times, there is no other help or hope for the Church today but through a sovereign movement of God's Holy Spirit. We are poor and needy! May God be gracious to us and rend the heavens and come down and revive and restore us to be a praise and glory in the earth! May our Savior who shed His blood to redeem us, our wonderful merciful, gracious and loving Father, the almighty, eternal, indestructible, immutable and only wise God, strengthen and sustain us by His grace through His Holy Spirit to persevere in the work He has set before us...

Half a dozen men: Is that too many to ask for?

I read George Whitefield's Journals last year and have wanted to reread them (I've dabbled in them a bit since that time), but I did take them along with me on retreat last week (see here and here for more on my time away).

Luke Tyerman (quoted by Iain Murray in the Introduction to George Whitefield's Journals, p. 19) wrote this about Whitefield:

After reading those words I wrote the following reflection/prayer in the margin and at the bottom of the page:

Amen.

So there I was praying in faith for half a dozen workers, trusting God to work through that small number...I thought that was a pretty strong prayer of faith...

But God showed me otherwise...

During one the services I attended while I was away, Scripture was read from Isaiah 51...

I had been asking the Lord for a half a dozen men and had been thinking that was a bold step of faith since in the big scheme of things half a dozen men is not very many, yet God rebuked and humbled me and reminded me all He needs is a single man. He doesn't need half a dozen men! He needs but one!

Aren't God's ways and thoughts are higher than ours?

We think (I think, anyhow) we certainly need more than one. We think (I think, anyhow) we need half a dozen men (or more, often many more). I continue to fall into the trap that we need more, more, more. More people to pray. More people to preach the Word. More. More. Grrr!

Is anything too hard for the Lord? No, of course not!

Can the Lord save by many or by few? Yes and yes!

Is not the Lord among His people wherever they go? Certainly yes!

Is the Lord's arm shortened or His power diminished because the numbers of men He chooses to enlist in His work are small? No, of course not!

On a retreat last spring God pretty much reminded me of this very same thing as I read Joshua 3 and reflected on His call to Israel to step out in faith:

Once more I've been reminded of how small my view of God is, how puny my faith is, and how I continue to limit God.

Did not God's Spirit move and bless and multiply through a single soul like Abraham our father?

Did not God's Spirit move and bless and multiply through a single soul, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ?

Cannot God's Spirit move and bless and multiply through a single one of us today?

I confess I find that hard to believe at times. ("O, Karen, ye of little faith!")

Yesterday on my other blog I was reflecting on Kingdom vision and posted some quotes from David Livingstone (from Rob Mackenzie's biography "David Livingstone: The Truth behind the Legend"). Here's one of them:

I know Livingstone meant this in a different way, but my friends in Christ, aren't we are that seed being sown, aren't we that small stone...

Yes, it's true that we are the least of all seeds now and we are a small stone now...seemingly insignificant in the eyes of men (and in our own eyes)...

However, because we are called by God and because we are filled with the Spirit of God ... Will we not grow a mighty tree? Will we not fill the whole earth?

Has God not called us like He did Abraham ... so He might bless and multiply us?

We see how we are so much like Abraham. Abraham was weak and powerless, his body was as good as dead and Sarah's womb was barren (see the last part of Romans 4) and yet we see how he trusted God's word and was justified by faith and lived by faith and God wrought through him a great nation, of which we are now a part by faith in Christ.

This is the same type of faith we're to have in God and in the promises of God. Yes, we are as good as dead. Yes, we are the least of seeds now. Yes, we are the small stone now ... Yes, that's us. But what do we know about God? Is not our God is the God who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. Romans 4:17.

Just as the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, died, was buried and rose again from the dead to be the firstfruits of many creatures, so too we have been buried with Christ and raised by His resurrection power and filled with His Spirit so we might bear fruit to God – much fruit, fruit that will last (John 15). As we put to death our fleshly desires and live the life by His Spirit He intends, as we die to our own interests and live to His Kingdom interests, to seek to serve rather than be served, there is no doubt the Lord Christ will bear fruit through us (e.g.- see Romans 6). That is God's intent for each of His children, not just the George Whitefields of the world, not just the ordained pastors, not just the worship leaders, etc., etc. If we are Christ's joint-heirs, we cannot help but bear fruit like our Brother because we have His same fruit-bearing Spirit dwelling within us.

As Abraham was but one, we are but few when He calls us, but God's intent has always been the same for His people: to bless us and multiply us and bear fruit through us throughout the whole earth! Was that not Jesus' commission to us? Has our Lord not given us all we need to bear fruit as He commands?

Returning back to the title of this post...

Perhaps it is too many. Perhaps not. No matter. Let us ask our Lord first and foremost to circumcise each of our hearts by His Spirit so we might die to self to live to Him, to hate our lives in this world so we might keep them for eternal life, so we might bear much fruit to His glory. By His grace, may we trust His ways and His timing, knowing that He is working all things for His glory, whether it takes 30, 40 or 50 years or more, for we can be assured that He waits only so He might be highly exalted (Isaiah 30:18)! And, by His grace, may we (I) not limit Him but leave the numbers to Him! For indeed He doeth all things well, does He not?

 
Nehemiah 5:1  Now there arose a great outcry of the people and of their wives against their Jewish brothers. 2  For there were those who said, “With our sons and our daughters, we are many. So let us get grain, that we may eat and keep alive.” 3  There were also those who said, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our houses to get grain because of the famine.” 4  And there were those who said, “We have borrowed money for the king's tax on our fields and our vineyards. 5  Now our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers, our children are as their children. Yet we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but it is not in our power to help it, for other men have our fields and our vineyards.”

6  I was very angry when I heard their outcry and these words. 7  I took counsel with myself, and I brought charges against the nobles and the officials. I said to them, “You are exacting interest, each from his brother.” And I held a great assembly against them 8  and said to them, “We, as far as we are able, have bought back our Jewish brothers who have been sold to the nations, but you even sell your brothers that they may be sold to us!” They were silent and could not find a word to say. 9  So I said, “The thing that you are doing is not good. Ought you not to walk in the fear of our God to prevent the taunts of the nations our enemies? 10  Moreover, I and my brothers and my servants are lending them money and grain. Let us abandon this exacting of interest. 11  Return to them this very day their fields, their vineyards, their olive orchards, and their houses, and the percentage of money, grain, wine, and oil that you have been exacting from them.” 12  Then they said, “We will restore these and require nothing from them. We will do as you say.” And I called the priests and made them swear to do as they had promised. 13  I also shook out the fold of my garment and said, “So may God shake out every man from his house and from his labor who does not keep this promise. So may he be shaken out and emptied.” And all the assembly said “Amen” and praised the LORD. And the people did as they had promised.

(I would encourage you to read the rest of Nehemiah 5, as well as Ezekiel 34 and Paul's words to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20.)

Chief Shepherd,

We thank you for shepherds like Nehemiah, shepherds who hear the great outcry of Your people. There are so many irresponsible shepherds lurking and prowling right in the midst Your people today.

Be merciful and gracious to us. Raise up good and true and faithful shepherds of the flock like our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ:

Be merciful and gracious to us. Raise up laborers in Your own image and after Your own heart, laborers filled with Your Holy Spirit:

Holy Father, You purchased us to be Your flock. Though we are Yours, we confess we are still prone to wander. Though we are each responsible to walk in Your ways, You have also promised to give us shepherds to lead us and to care for us and lead us in Your ways. You know how many bad shepherds there are out there. They bring reproach to Your holy Name. Hear our great outcry this day against the many irresponsible shepherds. Have mercy on them. Turn their hearts so they might turn back to You and walk in Your ways and lead Your people as they ought.

Good Shepherd, You shed Your blood for us. You never did anything out of selfish ambition. We thank You that You hear our cries and are continuing to intercede for us to save us to the uttermost in spite of the attacks and wiles of irresponsible shepherds. We pray as we are given opportunities to care for the sheep, You might help us to shepherd as You did: with humility, love and integrity, with that perfect balance of grace and truth.

Holy Spirit, Your anointing remains in us and will lead us into all truth. Thank You! You know that we are so easily deceived! Give us ears to hear Your voice. Help us to remain in Your Word and may Your Word abide in us. May we not follow the hirelings but only have ears to hear Jesus, the Good Shepherd. Turn our ears and our hearts from listening to and following all other voices.

Lord God,

Be merciful and gracious to us. We are Your people, the sheep of Your pasture. Send us shepherds after Your own heart, shepherds like You and shepherds like Nehemiah.

We pray You would raise up shepherds after Your own heart, men who have ears to hear and have compassion on Your flock and do not turn a deaf ear to the great outcry of Your people – rather than men who are self-absorbed with their own thoughts and speech and have no ears to hear the cries of the hurting.

We pray You would raise up shepherds after Your own heart, men who have tears to cry for the crying sheep – rather than men who turn away with bald indifference to the great outcry.

We pray You would raise up shepherds after Your own heart, men who walk in the fear of the Lord – rather than men who walk in the fear of men.

We pray You would raise up shepherds after Your own heart, men who are seeking to lift You up – rather than men who are seeking to lift themselves up.

We pray You would raise up shepherds after Your own heart, men who take heed to themselves and the flock – rather than men who forget they will stand before Your judgment seat one day and give account.

We pray You would raise up shepherds after Your own heart, men who have soft hearts and admit when they have sinned against the flock and confess their sins and make reparation and restitution to the flock  – rather than men who are hard-hearted and continue in sin and deny wrong-doing.

We pray You would raise up shepherds after Your own heart, men who are filled with Your love and are seeking to love Your flock – rather than men who abuse and oppress Your flock.

We pray You would raise up shepherds after Your own heart, men who have eyes to see the harassed, helpless and hurting souls and seek their welfare – rather than men who have only an eye to their own needs are seek the welfare of their own souls.

We pray You would raise up shepherds after Your own heart, men who are seeking to feed the hungry flock – rather than men who consume it upon their lusts and feed their own fleshly hungers.

We pray You would raise up shepherds after Your own heart, men who travail in labor to see the flock bear fruit through the freedom they have in Christ – rather than men who rape the flock with legalistic teachings producing fruit leading to death.

We pray You would raise up shepherds after Your own heart, men who are seeking to build Your Kingdom – rather than men who are seeking to build their own kingdoms.

We pray You would raise up shepherds after Your own heart, men who are seeking to serve the flock – rather than men who seek to be served.

We pray You would raise up shepherds after Your own heart, men who encourage and build up the flock – rather than men who seek to oppress the flock and tear them down.

We pray You would raise up shepherds after Your own heart, men who love the flock a self-sacrificing love – rather than men who slaughtering the flock for their own personal gain.

We pray You would raise up shepherds after Your own heart, men who disadvantage themselves and make themselves nothing like You did – rather than men who take advantage of the flock in any way (particularly in terms of sexual abuse).

We pray You would raise up shepherds after Your own heart, men who help, defend and gather the flock – rather than men who attack, harass and scatter the flock.

Great Shepherd of the sheep, be merciful and gracious to us. Hear our prayers for Jesus' sake. Raise up shepherds after Your own heart to lead us. Amen.