I gave my brother Hanani, and Hananiah the governor of the castle, charge over Jerusalem for he was a more faithful and God-fearing man than many.
– Nehemiah 7:2
How about that for a description of someone? Hanani was faithful and God-fearing. This is so simple. I almost feel no need to explain this verse anymore because it is such a clear picture of what God desires for our lives, for your life and my life.
Nehemiah 7:2 teaches us to have reverence and awe before God.
What a great thing for us to pray over our lives and over others, that we would be faithful, full of faith in God, obedient to God, trusting in God, loving God, believing God, faithful and God-fearing that we would have a reverence and awe before God, a healthy fear of God.
Think Acts 9, “Walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.” That’s the way the church was described as it multiplied in Acts because they were fearing God. So let’s just pray this over our lives. This is so simple and yet so significant.
Nehemiah 7:2 reminds us to be God-fearing.
God, we pray for each of our lives that we would be faithful today. Lord, we pray that our lives today would be full of faith in you, walking with faith in you, trusting you, believing you amidst whatever we’re walking through in our lives, full of faith in you, in ways that lead to obedience to you, in ways that lead to worship of you and love for you and fear of you. God, we pray that you would make us God-fearing.
Help us to fear you rightly and appropriately and truly to honor and revere love and tremble before. Glorify you. God, we pray that it would be true of our lives that we were faithful and God-fearing. Yes, God, we pray that. We pray that you would uncover any areas of our life, every area of our life that is not full of faith right now, it’s not faithful, and in ways we’re not walking faithfully with you and/or any ways in which we’re not rightly fearing you, revering you, worshiping you in ways that glorify you to the full.
Prayer for the Jat People
And God, we pray that you would help us to build up others and their faith today, that you would use our lives to lead others to be faithful and God-fearing because of our influence by your grace in their lives. And God, we pray for the Jat people of India and Pakistan and spread out even in places like United States and Canada. God, we pray that you would help us to faithfully, in the fear of you, spread the gospel to all the peoples of the world, including the Jat of India and Pakistan, and Jat people who may be right around us.
Lord, help us to be sensitive to the nations you’ve brought to us, to unreached people groups that we have the opportunity to reach wherever we live. God, help us to be faithful and to fear you as we obey your command to make disciples of the nations. We pray these words over our lives today. Help us to be faithful and God-fearing according to your word in Nehemiah 7:2, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
