GOD IS LOOKING FOR NEHEMIAHS, FOR PEOPLE HE CAN ENTRUST WITH INFLUENCE, WITH FAVOR, WITH RESOURCES.

18/09/24

GOSPEL CORNER

JOEL OSTEEN MINISTRIES
TODAY’S WORD

Today’s Scripture
When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.
Nehemiah 1:4, NIV

BE A NEHEMIAH
When Nehemiah heard that the walls of Jerusalem, his home city, had been torn down and burned, and that the people who survived were in great danger, he wept. He was heartbroken. For days he mourned. He asked God to do something. Even though he was a thousand miles away from Jerusalem and had no means to do anything himself, God put a dream in his heart to go back home and rebuild those walls. And amazingly, he did.

It’s significant that Nehemiah was weeping over what he wanted to make better. His heart was broken over the wrongs that he saw. This wasn’t about having a big position, being well known, acquiring more. His dream was tied to building the kingdom, helping people rise higher, seeing his family reach their potential. When your heart is to make a difference, when your motives are right, when you’re moved over people you want to help, moved over loved ones who are struggling, you will see God do miracles. God is looking for Nehemiahs, for people He can entrust with influence, with favor, with resources.

A PRAYER FOR TODAY
“Father, thank You for the burdens that You put in my heart for others and for the work of Your kingdom. Thank You that my heart can break and I can weep over what I know breaks Your heart. I believe that You are going to help me make a difference in others’ lives. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”

SECTION TWO
My friend, God wants you to live each day knowing that you are His beloved child, in whom He is well pleased. That is your daily nourishment from Him—to know, believe, and confess that you are His beloved and that you are well-pleasing to Him all the time.

Some years ago, I was taking a cab in New York and I took the opportunity to share the love of Jesus with the driver. Her response was quite typical. She said flippantly, “Yeah man! God loves everybody!”

It is absolutely true that God loves everybody, but to experience His love firsthand in your life, you have to personalize His love for you. Jesus died for you and do you know that even if you were the only person on earth, God would still have sent His Son to die on the cross for you? That is how precious YOU are to Him!

You need to personalize John 3:16 by declaring, “For God so loved ___ (insert your name), He sent His only begotten Son to die on the cross for ___ (insert your name).” Be like the disciple John, who personalized the Lord’s love for him by calling himself “the disciple whom Jesus loved.”

The sun shines on every blade of grass in a field. But if you put a magnifying glass over one particular blade of grass, it will center the heat from the sun over that blade, and that blade of grass will burn.

That is what you must do with God’s love. Put a magnifying glass over your life and imagine God’s love being focused and concentrated on YOU!

When you personalize God’s love for YOU, when you live each day knowing that God loves YOU, you will be blazing with a supernatural ability to overcome every challenge in life!