Nehemiah: God's Broker Part 5

We have all seen people who have emulated others with the hope of acquiring the same results. Truth be known, the majority of us have done that to one degree or another since childhood. My grandson is an official little leaguer. Watching those mini-Sosas (not to be confused with Bob Dylan's home state) is a perfect example. Those lumber wielding hopefuls usually sidle up to the plate and fan the air nine out of ten times. Fielding skills usually make the slugging percentages look great. BUT…one thing I have noticed: they all from the least to the greatest, know how to knock the dirt off their cleats, pound the plate, spit, adjust the cap, and slide---even back to the dugout (still too young for the chew and scratch skills which require hours of fine tuning).

We have people in churchdom whom God may use in some unique way to provide a blessing for the body of Christ at large. Often this ‘success' will be followed by a long train of technique vendors who will produce something that looks or sounds the same, sometimes even better. At other times there is a hollowness about the product that says “another knock-off of _______.” In the manifold life of our God, that's a crime; but that's also another topic.

Nehemiah was not just another throne groupie with the rear end of his horse plastered with THE fish and catchy slogans (‘whinny if you love Jesus'). He not only spent great amounts of time before that throne, but there was a definite posture assumed that lent an ever increasing richness to those stretches of logged throne time.

We were winding our way along a jungle path on the way to our house after a service during which a visiting minister had given a good word on Romans 12.1,2. My visiting sister-in-law had become uncharacteristically quiet. I wondered how she was digesting all she had just heard, being unconverted and ignorant to all of the ‘gospel speak'. At last she gave a cautious sidelong glance and queried forth in a careful voice “Just exactly what IS a living sacrifice?” She just knew Jim Jones was going to hop out of the bushes any second, offering free Kool-Aid.

As cup-bearer, Mr. N. had the privilege of daily positioning his body between his king and any cup doctored for death. On Nehemiah's watch the ever present threat of regicide by vintage would stop one mouth short of the throne. There were no bullets to take for his king, but if there had been, he would have. That's the posture that herds a man towards bananas coming out of his throat (see part four). The poured out life for the king. It is nothing short of the Spirit of Christ.

Heb 2:9 …..that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. KJV

There we are careening our merry way down the road to destruction. Somehow, ripping through the veil of time precisely for our critical moment, Calvary's hero swipes the cup of sin and death from our hands and downs its contents in our place. Our beloved cup-bearer.

So there it is. Throne time + living sacrifice = collision with calling. Have a banana.