The act of corporate confession described in Nehemiah 9 leads to an act of corporate recommitment. Acts of recommitment like this are vital. We are like cars with bad wheel alignment; we have a tendency to stray from God. We also have an aversion to recognising this. So, we need God to save us regularly and, in his grace, he does. I became a Christian in my late teens and since then I have been saved regularly. Moreover, I am most often saved when I haven’t asked to be saved, in fact, when I have been unaware that I even needed to be saved. So often God has shaken me awake when I was completely oblivious to my wayward trajectory. This is part of God’s commitment to me. When this happens, I make a point of responding with an act of recommitment similar to the one described in this chapter of Nehemiah. We read here that the people even bound themselves with a curse to follow God (vs.29). What they meant is that they wanted to crash if they went the wrong way. They did not want to succeed in living without God. The worst thing that can happen to a person, in this life, is that they end up being happy without God. So, like the Jews did in this chapter, I often ask God to do whatever it takes to stop me if I go the wrong way. That is my expression of trust in God’s commitment to me. May the Lord bless you, then, when you walk with him. And may he discipline you as harshly as necessary if you do not.
Recommit yourself to God today.
Read Nehemiah 10
