Pray and post a guard

“We prayed…and posted a guard.” Ne 4:9 NIV

God’s sovereignty doesn’t negate our responsibility. Just the opposite. It empowers it. When we trust God, we think more clearly and react more decisively. Like Nehemiah, who said, “We prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat.” Note the words: “We prayed…and posted a guard.” Nehemiah did two things. He trusted God for success, and acted on what God had told him to do. Prayer invites God to do what you cannot do. Paul wrote, “Pray without ceasing” (1Th 5:17). Why? Because God comes by invitation. Until you’ve sought God’s guidance you’re at the mercy of your own thoughts, and everybody else’s. When you don’t know what you don’t know, you’re in a dangerous place. Why settle for human knowledge when you can have divine input? God says, “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know” (Jer 33:3 NKJV). And when God reveals His will to you, don’t delay and don’t debate—do it! Before God gives you His next set of instructions, He wants to know that you have obeyed His last set of instructions. Why? Because He cannot bless you beyond your last act of disobedience. So stop and take an inventory. If you’ve done the wrong thing, repent, make a course correction, and get back on the right path as quickly as possible. “But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you’” (Jer 7:23 NKJV).

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