MONDAY, October 31

We are told in Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death..." The reality of this is that usually no one drops dead the moment sin. Children learn this early. In fact, it seems that we "get away with" most wrong doings. We even find ways to hide our sin from others. However, like the author said, sin is not without punishment, sooner or later. It damages (even brings death to) our very spirit.

"Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." James 5:16.

Nehemiah: "No such things as you say have been done; you are inventing them out of your own mind’ for they all wanted to frighten us, thinking..." (that what we know from God is not from God.)

When word came to … our enemies that I had rebuilt the wall and not a gap was left in it [they] sent me this message: “Come, let us meet together in one of the villages.”
But they were scheming to harm me; so I sent this reply: “I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?” Four times they sent me the same message, and each time I gave them the same answer.
Then, the fifth time, [an] aide came to me and in his hand was an unsealed letter in which was written:
“It is reported among the nations that you and the Jews are plotting to revolt, and therefore you are building the wall. Moreover, according to these reports you are about to become their king and have even appointed prophets to make this proclamation about you in Jerusalem: ‘There is a king in Judah!’ Now this report will get back to the king; so come, let us meet together.”
I sent him this reply: “Nothing like what you are saying is happening; you are just making it up out of your head.”
They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, “Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed.”
But I prayed, “Now strengthen my hands.”
One day I [was told that men were coming to kill me]. But I … realized that God had not sent him, but that he had prophesied against me. He had been hired to intimidate me so that I would commit a sin by doing this, and then they would give me a bad name to discredit me.
So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God.

Does all pain come from sin?

Rhonda, I had the same question. I don't know the answer, but I still have the same question. Does all pain come from sin? The writer of the meditation didn't leave any wiggle room. That's OK. Thank God I have a mind of my own, sinful as it is.

I posted the passage from Nehemiah 6 in order to show the verse posted by "proph" in context.