Gifts and Talents

           There are not a lot of “Oh! No’s!”, in our lives, but there are things that can come our way that are a shock to us. We have a person who is dear to us that dies, Oh! No! We lose our job because our company is downsizing., Oh! No!

      When Nehemiah was rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, his enemies sent a message to him asking for a meeting in the plain of Ono. Nehemiah sent them a message refusing to come to them, because he was doing a great work. His enemies sent a message to him four times, and Nehemiah refused four times.

      Our enemies are always trying to stop us from doing the work that God has for us. The enemy will try anything to slow us down. Sometimes he will use our relatives and friends to accomplish his goal. He will use any tactic that will help him in his mission. Nehemiah did the right thing, He ignored the request that his enemies were trying to get him to do. He kept working on the wall.

      The enemy is always trying to stop us, and if he can’t, he tries to slow us down. We can ignore the enemy also. If he keeps trying, then we command him to leave. We, as Christians, have the authority over our enemies. There may be some Oh! No’s! In our lives, but we will not let them slow us down. We know who our enemies are, and they will not stop us, or slow us down.

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      New King James Version
Nehemiah 6:1 Now it happened when Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies heard that I had rebuilt the wall, and that there were no breaks left in it (though at that time I had not hung the doors in the gates),
2 that Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, "Come, let us meet together among the villages in the plain of Ono." But they thought to do me harm.
3 So I sent messengers to them, saying, "I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down. Why should the work cease while I leave it and go down to you?"
4 But they sent me this message four times, and I answered them in the same manner.