If we want to rebuild, there will be a battle. It doesn’t matter if we are closing our personal gates to evil or helping a community recover their protection from it; the enemy of our faith will attempt to stop the good work. Nehemiah leads us through a Godly way of dealing with the attacks and persevering through the battle to continue building the wall.

In this passage, Jesus shows us that forgiveness is more than just a nice gesture. It is an essential part of being a follower of Christ. We have all been forgiven a debt we cannot pay, and we should show the same mercy to others. When we refuse to forgive, we are revealing that we have excluded ourselves from the community of sinners - Jesus says that is wickedness.

We are living in a time where faith, family and community have been eroded. In order for any town to be changed there needs to be miraculous reviving of these three values. Nehemiah has revived the faith of Jerusalem in chapters 1-2 and now he oversees a united community ready to rebuild.