Nehemiah 9:6 “You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you. You are the Lord, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham. You found his heart faithful before you, and made with him the covenant to give to his offspring the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite. And you have kept your promise, for you are righteous.
“And you saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard their cry at the Red Sea, and performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants and all the people of his land, for you knew that they acted arrogantly against our fathers. And you made a name for yourself, as it is to this day. And you divided the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on dry land, and you cast their pursuers into the depths, as a stone into mighty waters. By a pillar of cloud you led them in the day, and by a pillar of fire in the night to light for them the way in which they should go. You came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven and gave them right rules and true laws, good statutes and commandments, and you made known to them your holy Sabbath and commanded them commandments and statutes and a law by Moses your servant. You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger and brought water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and you told them to go in to possess the land that you had sworn to give them.
“But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments. They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them. Even when they had made for themselves a golden calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed great blasphemies, you in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud to lead them in the way did not depart from them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night to light for them the way by which they should go. You gave your good Spirit to instruct them and did not withhold your manna from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst. Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.
Nehemiah gives an account of Creation and the hand of God choosing Abraham because of his faith and making a covenant with him and his descendants to give them the possession of land from people who were evil and vile. He speaks of their rescue from Egypt and the wondrous works God performed then and in the wilderness. In all of this, Nehemiah recounts their father’s sin in refusing to be mindful of God’s wonders and obey. He also called out the fact that they themselves were no different and had stiffened their neck – they proudly denied serving God and did what was right in their own eyes.
We too must be mindful of our heart and know what is residing in it through the light of God’s word. When our necks stiffen it is not as though we have taken a firm, knowing stand against God, but rather we have chosen to neglect His word, what He has done, what He has promised, and what He will do. In this neglect, our eyes to our heart come to the point of being blind and our ears to our soul become deaf to His leading. We are left with a stiff neck toward the things of God and since He is not the light and the bread of life to our soul we end up doing what is right in our own eyes for the door to our heart, mind, and soul is closed tight through this neglect.
Read God’s word with the intent of gaining godly wisdom and understanding. Read it with eyes expecting to see something new revealed to your heart. Read it with ears desiring to hear the whispers of the Holy Spirit’s leading. Read it with the door to your heart, mind, and soul wide open. When we start to read it with this commitment we will start to understand what it means to humbly serve, honor, glorify, worship, praise, follow, trust, and obey Jesus Christ.