These are my thoughts as I reflected upon my reading in Nehemiah with more questions presented than answers found. Nehemiah 7 and 8 has driven home the fact the Christians cannot live outside the community found within the church. When we perceive that we can live a life marked by solitude apart from the fellowship of believers I honest believe that we are living outside the intentions that God has for mankind. The journey that the Israelites progressed from being set apart by God to this moment where a remnant has returned to Jerusalem has always focused on the community of the people. Consistently the punishment for sinfulness and disobedience was either death or expulsion from the community. The culture of the Israelites is one where people were in contact with one another and living out life together. In society today we can go through our day with little regard and thought given to any other person other than ourself. We are surrounded with self serve, self improvement, and self help which only facilitate our solitude enabling behaviors.
Why are my thoughts driven towards the importance of dwelling within a community of believers by reading ] Nehemiah? The rebuilding of the wall had been completed but the people of Israel were still in ruin and in desperate need of having their shattered hearts mended. What was the condition of their hearts toward God? Were they open to God before their Babylonian exile? Were their hearts thirsting for God upon their return to Jerusalem? The hearts of the people were hardened towards God and it required their removal from all of their idols and comforts to shatter the hardness. Once a heart is broken can anything other than God mend it? In Nehemiah 8 Ezra reads to the people of Israel from the book of the law and they weep upon hearing the word of God proclaimed to them.
When we join in community to follow God what happens? Why do people fear being a part of a community of believers? Do people fear that the leaders are not upright? Is there a fear that when many people join together that the truth will be obscured or tainted? Is there a sense that people think that they can manage their faith in God in solitude? Have many people today fallen into a consumer based faith within the church looking only to what they can consume? People are all too ready to enter church that will allow them to get their needs met but they in turn do not give their time to help others. What hope is there?
How can we know God? The root of the problem for Israel in Nehemiah and for the church today is that we do not know God or what He desires. When the people in Nehemiah 8 gathered to hear the truth of God proclaimed they found out who they were by knowing who God was. In the church locally and globally, within each community there are people who God has blessed to be able to teach the truths of Scripture just as Ezra and Nehemiah were used of God. Is there a disconnect that happens between the teaches and those who listen? If the people of Israel were not individually seeking to grow closer to God would they be helping the Israelites community? If people within the church only look to consume and never to digest and transform from within, what will the health of the church be? A leader will always be a catalyst to point people back to God but if people take ownership of their faith and desired to cling to God with all their heart, mind, soul and strength, how would the church be impacted. If each member of the church body were to desire to enrich their relationship with God what would happen? We need to rise up and seek help from God to shatter our hardened hearts and seek Him daily so that we can find healing and renewal. In unity when we seek God in solitude before we gather what would happen?
