by Steve Higginbotham
As you probably know by now, our theme for 2013 is “The People Had A Mind To Work.” This phrase comes from Nehemiah 4:6, and explains why God’s people were able to accomplish the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem.
I don’t need to tell you that we, as a church, have work to do. We all know that. I don’t need to “sell” you on the need for workers in the kingdom of God. We have that one done pat. What you and I may need is to be reminded of why we need to enlist our services in the Lord’s work.
So, in this article, I don’t want to tell you what you already know you should be doing, I just want to give you a motivation to do it. While reading the Bible the other evening, I stumbled across a passage that give us just such motivation.
In this passage the Lord was speaking to Israel and he said, “You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this thing. When you reap your harvest in your field, and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the works of your hands” (Deuteronomy 24:18-19).
Do you see the principles at work here? The Lord instructs us to “remember.” But remember what? Remember that you were “ruined” (they were once slaves in Egypt), “redeemed” by the Lord, and therefore they have “responsibility” toward others.
If we, like Israel, will remember these three points, won’t it help us to develop a “Mind to Work” even today? When we consider how ruined we were in sin, only to be redeemed by our Savior, how can we not fulfill our responsibility to help others?