This post is Day 4 in a series of studies about “Nehemiah”. I strongly suggest you begin with the introduction to this study, please click here to read it.

Feel free to comment below with your own thoughts about each verse and how you will be acting on each thought. Also, if you haven’t yet signed up to receive the notifications of new studies, you can do that today. (The form is at the bottom of the page).

Nehemiah – Day 4

This prayer is a good model to follow. It begins with praise, declaring who God is; not for God’s benefit, He knows who He is! But by praying in that way, we remind ourselves who He is. Consequently, we can take our rightful place as believers in His Almighty Power.

Nehemiah 1:5-7

Lord God of Heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps His covenant of love with those who love Him and keep His commandments, I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s family, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses.

The Thought

This prayer is a good model to follow. It begins with praise, declaring who God is; not for God’s benefit, He knows who He is! But by praying in that way, we remind ourselves who He is. Consequently, we can take our rightful place as believers in His Almighty Power.

Before getting to the subject of the prayer, and in recognising the Lordship of Father God, Nehemiah goes into confession recognising and confessing his own sin and that of his own family.

The format that we can recognise in this prayer is often used in meetings for teaching people how to pray. Begin with recognising who it is we are speaking to. Then as we think of His majesty and splendour and how small we are in comparison, we recognise and confess our own sins in humility, and trusting in His forgiveness.

There are no rules about prayer. This sort of format is good if we are needing a format because we are new to prayer. But as we get to know how much God love us, we will pray more and more like Jesus, using familiar language because we are addressing a Father who loves us.

Action

Today as you turn to pray, think about how you pray, do you use formal prayers written in a book for others to use. (These can often be very helpful especially if you are new to prayer.)

Do you talk to Jesus as though He is your best friend? That’s who He wants to be.

Do you read the prayers in the Bible?

Try a different type of prayer today.