Nehemiah 1:7: “We have acted very corruptly against You, and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, nor the ordinances which You commanded Your servant Moses.”

November 3rd, 2023 by Pastor Ed in devotional

Nehemiah, a contemporary of Ezra, was born in Babylon during the captivity, so he had never been to Israel. But thirteen years after Ezra’s journey to Jerusalem, one of the men of Israel returned to Babylon, and Nehemiah asked him about the people and the city. When he found that the walls of Jerusalem had still not been rebuilt, he wept and prayed to the Lord. He not only confessed the sin of the nation of Israel, but included himself as one of the guilty. Nehemiah, having been born after the initial exile, could have been tempted to think that none of the captivity was his fault; but he was very careful to identify with his people, to confess and repent. There is no use trying to hide our sins, since they will always find us out. And to Nehemiah’s credit, he was very open about them.

A couple of Boeing employees, who worked at the factory in Washington, stole a life raft from one of the planes. They succeeded in getting the raft out of the plant and home. But they failed to take into account one important fact; all airplane rafts come with emergency locators, which are automatically activated when the raft is inflated. When they took the raft for a float on the Stillaguamish River, in northwest Washington State, they were surprised by a coast guard helicopter that had homed in on the emergency locator, which activated the moment they inflated the raft. A company spokesperson told the press, “They are no longer Boeing employees.” It is even more futile to try to hide our sin from God. It is in fact impossible since He sees them all, but we have hope because He is faithful to forgive us when we confess and repent.

“LORD, we confess our sins and turn from them back to You this day, in Jesus’ name.”