Nehemiah 7 is mostly a list of names and numbers. It is a record of those who returned to Jerusalem.

It’s impressive, the records that were kept. They could look through family records and find who was truly of the priestly line and who was from Israel. People memorized their lineage, like what we see in the beginning of Matthew. People could tell you who their father was, and their father’s father, and their father’s father’s father, and so on.

The work on the wall is wrapping up. Nehemiah puts his brother in charge. He doesn’t trust him because he is his brother; he trusts him because his brother feared God more than most.

What was the result? It made him a man of integrity.

Nehemiah says that God put it into his heart to assemble the nobles.

The unregenerate heart is deceitful. The heart of flesh is deceitful. But here, Nehemiah is following what’s on his heart. And that’s okay.

Ephesians 3:17 says that Christ makes His home in our hearts by faith.

If Jesus were residing in your heart, couldn’t good things come from it?

God is leading Nehemiah by putting something on his heart.

The prophet tells David to do all that is in his heart because God was with him.

God renews minds, but He also gives us new hearts.

And what do we find in this new heart where Christ dwells? The fear of the Lord and integrity.

How do we keep this pure heart that follows after God? To follow someone, you need to have your eyes on them.

We need to keep our eyes on Jesus and learn His ways, so we know which way He’s going. We can do that through prayer and Bible study.

I noticed the number of singers and mules were the same. Singers should be people with hearts set on God. Their literal job was to worship God. It made me think of Psalm 32, where we are warned to not be like the mule who has to be harnessed with a bit to draw him near. We’re to choose to draw near to God. That should be our first instinct, our heart desire.