Nehemiah 8:9-10
I wish I knew the exact time line between yesterday's verses and today's but I don’t. We know that Ezra is still around because he spoke in our verses. It makes sense for the walls around Jerusalem to be damaged from war, as Ezra had just rebuilt the Temple in our verses yesterday. Nehemiah was the cup bearer for King Artaxerxes, who was Queen Esther's step son. King Art (we’ll call him for short) saw how upset Nehemiah was and offered to give him time off and help fund the rebuild.
Ironically enough, this was once again their time to celebrate The Festival of Shelters which we wrote about the other day. Ezra had read the Law to the crowd and they were crying because they knew they had not been living by it. God was trying to get them to stop crying and be joyful with food and the festival.
Dictionary.com defines strength in 3 ways: 1. The quality or state of being strong, bodily, or muscular power; 2. Mental power, force, or vigor; 3. Moral power, firmness, courage. So when Ezra told them not to be dejected or sad because the JOY of the LORD is their strength, how does that translate?
In my opinion joy can make us mentally strong, full of courage, and have moral power. When you are living out of joy, even the hard times can’t steal it. There are some awesome Christian songs out about joy that I love! 3 of them are:
Can't Steal My Joy by Josiah Queen & Brandon Lake
Joyful by Dante Bowe
The Joy by TheBelongingCo featuring David Dennis
They are all on YouTube if you’d like to hear them. Let me know if you like them too.
