"....the natural reasonable response for a believer who has been saved from his sins and who has been adopted into Christ’s family, and who has been given every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ (Eph. 1:3), etc., is to sing praises to the Lord. God has dealt wonderfully bountifully with each of His kids. One of the ways we should show our appreciation is by singing to Him."

Thought it might be helpful to summarize the requests Paul listed in these passages and added one at the end. Romans 15:30-32 - - “ Now I urge you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God for me, that I may be rescued from those who are disobedient in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may prove acceptable to the saints; so that I may come to you in joy by the will of God and find refreshing res

Jesus’s destiny and ultimate purpose was all wrapped up in this city. Our eternal destiny is centered in what happened in that city. And Luke wants us to know that as the time for this fateful but glorious day approached, Jesus determined, literally “set His face” to go there one last time and fulfill the Father’s will.

I compiled this list for several reasons: First, so that leaders of Christ’s church will see the need to intentionally request prayer and not feel ashamed to do so. We are in good company when we do so.

There is nothing more important in God’s house in that day and in Christ’s church in our day than the facilitating of God honoring worship in song and with instruments. Even with a full time paid worship pastor, this can never be taken for granted. Please note that in vs. 31 Nehemiah himself “….appointed two great choirs”.

Corporate singing praises to God is almost always an integral part of times of spiritual renewal and revival in the Old Testament.

I want to say this morning that Jesus’s kingdom will never be established, nor His church built and expanded like He wants it built and expanded until women play their rightful role. But the kind of women Jesus is looking for, and the only kind of women Jesus can build with are women who – like the woman described in the latter part of chapter seven - love Him much - because they have been forgiven much

Pride blinds us from knowing and seeing God as He is. Pride blinds us from seeing the stench and seriousness of our sins as they are. And pride causes us to scorn and detest others whose sin may be more obvious than ours, but certainly is no worse.

One of the great problems with Israel, and I dare say one of the great problems of the church today is if we are not very careful, we can easily become blind to what God is doing in our world –even in its darkest hour.

"For many years we white folk enslaved our fellow African Americans, treating them like animals, splitting up their families, sometimes sexually abusing their women, sometimes murdering the men if we felt they were out of line. When slavery was finally overturned we continued to treat them as sub humans – discriminating against them as to where they could sit on a public transport bus...."