ReligionJanuary 22, 2025

Nehemiah's story of rebuilding Jerusalem's walls offers a powerful lesson in community revival and faith. Discover how his determination and prayer can inspire us to restore our own lives and communities.

The CrossRoads Connection: God has a plan!

In the book of Nehemiah, the walls of the city of Jerusalem lay in ruins. For more than a century the city walls had seen war and had been thru neglect to the place where there was no protection provided by them. Not only did it leave the city open to attack, but it encouraged ridicule from the neighboring powers.

Nehemiah wept, mourned, and fasted and prayed when he heard the news of the walls condition. There needed to be a time of restoration.

I believe with all my heart that God has a plan of restoration for every life! We need lives restored in this area in these little towns around here and every town and city in this country!

We need God to do His part, but listen friend, God needs us to do our part! I believe that He has a plan and it’s important that we understand that God has more for you than what you're experiencing right now. He has more for each of you; more blessings, more victories, more joy, more peace, more faith, more hope and more depth in your experience with Christ.

Do you believe God wants to move in this Pemiscot community we live in? If we're not affecting the community where we live, then we're terribly missing Gods will. He wants to use you to help birth people into His Kingdom. He wants to use you to help bring healing and deliverance to this area! The Lord is giving you an awesome chance and opportunity to make a difference where you live, where you worship, and where you work.

But it will require a mind to work! It will take a strong work ethic! Nehemiah 4:6 "So we built the wall, and the entire wall was joined together up to half its height, for the people had a mind to work."

Let me share with you a plain and simple fact; if we don't care, it’s not going to happen. If we don't pursue with all our heart the invitation that God's given us, God will either take His plan somewhere else or raise another group up that will be willing to carry out His will.

Have you ever had an aquarium? I have and it’s a lot of work! Someone must build or buy an aquarium! Someone must get some water! Someone must get some fish! Someone has to get some gravel for the bottom, and someone has to keep it clean, and someone has to feed the fish, and someone has to add water, and someone has to get the algae off the sides, and someone has to replace the light over the top when it burns out, and someone has to mop the floor when it springs a leak, and someone has to fix the leak, and someone has to dip out the dead fish, and then someone has to get some more new fish!

Most of the time it’s the same person doing all of that! You know why? Because they are the one who wanted an aquarium! If you didn’t want the aquarium, you don’t care much about taking care of the aquarium! You might enjoy looking at the lights and the fish and the gravel and the bubbles, but you haven’t taken ownership in the aquarium because it’s not your aquarium! Nehemiah saw an aquarium whose walls were torn down! He needed help and he could not do it by himself!

But sometimes we get tired of all the work because of the obstacles!

Judah said in Nehemiah 4:10 The strength of the laborers is failing, and there is so much rubbish that we are not able to build the wall.

We must get rid of those things that clutter our lives, so we can then rebuild. Listen, there are things in all of us that we need to turn over to the Lord, areas in our life that keep us from being effective for Him. The more we refuse to deal with the junk, the more it accumulates in our lives!

Have you ever seen the show Hoarders? Our lives can become just like that! Stuff piled to the ceiling and consuming us! Not physical things like too many shoes or boxes of stuff, but stuff like mental worry, doubt, fatigue, sickness, malady and malfunction. Sometimes we must get rid of stuff before we can be restored.

“If we always do what we've always done, we'll always get what we've always got”

Nehemiah 4:17 "Those who built on the wall, and those who carried burdens, loaded themselves so that with one hand they worked at construction, and with the other held a weapon."

Each of us need to find our calling and fulfill it, and it's going to take some fighting to be restored.

We need to bombard heaven and attack hell with a mighty force of prayer. The prayer of agreement is a mighty force. Matthew 18:18 "Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven”!

We must be willing to fight. We are in a very real war, the battle for souls! We are soldiers in this war! We have powerful weapons to overcome the kingdom of darkness! The enemy will always try to stop God from restoring and bringing things to life. Anytime you start advancing forward, the enemy will push back! You can expect a push back! What you must do is push back harder!

It’s time to bring restoration to ourselves, time to bring restoration to our families, time to bring restoration to this community, and time to expand the Kingdom of The Most High God!!

Nehemiah was successful; we can be too!

It Is Time!

Until next week, Pastor Danny Neal

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