Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls.
Proverbs 25:28
SCRIPTURE: NEHEMIAH 1:1-4 “The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah. And it came to pass in the month Chisleu, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the palace,2 That Hanani, one of my brethren, came, he and certain men of Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, which were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem.3 And they said unto me, The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach: the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire.4 And it came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven,” COMMENTS: Israel did well when they isolated themselves from pagan religions and cultures and poorly when they mingled and socialized and intermarried with pagan people. God commanded them not to but they did anyway. Yet the folly of doing so was repeated over and over again in their history. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. Walls are design to keep some in and others out. Walls for the Israelites was designed to keep evil out and good in. When Nehemiah lead some of the Israelites from captivity in Babylon back to Israel to rebuild Jerusalem and its walls, they were threatened with hostile pagans there while facing a monumental task of rebuilding their destroyed city. The first task was to rebuild its walls. They all circles the inside of the wall and kept their weapons next to them while rebuilding the portion of the wall in front of them. That is how they rebuilt their city’s wall while facing hostile forces. After they achieved that, they began rebuilding the temple and rest of their city.
But they were not able to do so until God’s timing concluded their time of judgment for their sins was over and He was ready to support their dream, and His, to rebuild to their promised land. They needed to repent and turn from their sins first but also needed to relearn and allow God to prepare them in soul and body and in mind to follow Him. A wall needed to be built inside them to shield them from satan before they could inhabit their promised land and rebuild walls around their temple and resident city.
Satan is skillful at destroying walls protecting us from temptation. Satan also is skillful and convincing us walls imprison us instead of protect us. But walls protect a city from harm just like self-control protect people, and you and me, from harm. When the Israelites indulged in pagan influences and sin, they torn down the wall of protection God had built in their souls, allowing satan free reign to draw them down the destructive path that resulted in Babylonian captivity for 70 years and destruction of Jerusalem and countless death of their friends and loved ones. Such a tragedy that was repeated many times before and many times since. It is also still being repeated in every culture and country and city and community and, yes, even in every family. Every one of us knows from experience the destructive consequence of allowing satan’s influence to draw us into sin. Every one of us knows the blessing of following God’s path instead. Yet the temptation to turn away from God’s plan and follow satan’s plan still is strong and appealing at times. When will we learn and when will we see satan for who he is? Well, only when we put and keep our hand in God’s hand by listening and following His instruction in scripture and follow the examples in scripture and from our own families and communities of those who have followed Him. The Holy Spirit is offering to abide in us and guide and help and protect and encourage us. The Holy Spirit is offering to be that wall of protection for us if we invite and welcome Him into our souls. The choice is our and is a daily choice to welcome or ignore Him even after we invite Him in. But when we keep our welcome sign out we are empowered to walk God’s path with Him each day, rendering our soul stronger in resisting temptation and following God and weaker in resistance to God’s will. That is because we will see satan more clearly as well as see God more clearly. Truth casts out fear and lies, satan’s most effective weapons.
Self-control is one of the fruits the Holy Spirit instills in us as He abides with us. Galatians 5:22-23 identifies them for us. “ 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
“It is impossible to be a follower of Jesus without giving diligent attention in our lives to the grace of self-control.” Jerry Bridges
Published by donsdevotions
Don McDaniel - Who am I?
Hello everyone and welcome to my devotional journal blog. In order to get acquainted and help you get to know me a bit better before considering following my blog, let me give you some background. I am a 74-year-old male and a retired engineer. I worked for a major supplier of underground mining equipment for nearly 40 years before retiring in 2012. Arlene and I have been happily married since April 1978 and have two grown – married children, one granddaughter and 2 step grandsons. I joined the local United Methodist church at age 12 after accepting Christ as my Savior at age 10 during revival services in that same church in 1961, so I have been a “Born Again” Christian all my teen years and adult life. Christ has helped and guided me all that time. He guided me in choosing my wife and life’s career. My life journey has included regrets and failures, but God has picked me up and protected and spared me from life threatening consequences and dangers more times than I can recall or count. But many I do recall and encourage and motivate me to trust and follow Christ with more passion than ever.
Christmas 2011 our daughter gave Arlene and I each a devotional journal. Journals were books with devotion for each day and space to give personal impressions and thoughts related to each devotion. Her desire was to have a lasting legacy she could refer back to and share with her children and grandchildren especially after we are gone. I was touched by that gesture. My parents and Arlene’s were devout Christians, so we would have greatly treasured having that from them, so we felt a sense of urgency to honor her request. I finished my journal first and returned it to our daughter the following Christmas. I’m glad I did it then because Parkinson’s has caused my hand writing to deteriorate since then. The exercise was such a blessing for me. Discipline of keeping journal helped me gain a deeper walk with Christ and greater discipline in honoring my time of prayer and devotion with Him each day. So, I decided to continue the practice but since I could not find a paper journal I liked, I decided to create my own. I had already been receiving electronic devotions by email every day from several sources, my favorite being “Turning Point” from Dr. David Jeremiah. What I decided to do was to include devotional scripture but add my own thoughts and comments only so there would be no issue of copyright infringement. Creating and maintaining journal by computer also addressed my deteriorating handwriting ability. I started an electronic devotion journal January 1, 2013 and have been faithful to that practice every day since. I prayed about method and level of distribution. My initial intent was to only share it with my two children by email, but quickly discovered others in my family, my church, and friends from work (both retired and still working) who knew me and wanted to be included in distribution when they learned what I was doing. I now distribute by email my daily journal at the beginning of each month to over 150 friends and relatives. God has richly blessed and encouraged me.
I am concerned with the state of our church and nation, and world for that matter, believing we are living in the end times the prophets of old and Christ have talked about in scripture, so time is short. I desire to be true to my Savior and a witness to help others come to a saving knowledge of Him and equipped to share His Good News too. If my journal can encourage and help others, I believe God wants me to share it. I struggled, for a time at first, because I know many others keep similar journals but only for their own edification and do not want to share them because they are private.
However, Christ has stirred my heart to share it as a witness tool.
Our son and daughter have a long-time friend who grew up with them who we also befriended nearly 25 years ago. He had a lot of family problems, so would gravitate to our family as a refuge and eventually thought of us as his adopted parents and he as our adopted son. We lost contact with him for some time when he grew up and left home. He traveled around the U.S. and eventually ended up in Ukraine where he resided for next 10 years. He had to return to the US to renew his visa and took opportunity to recommend I begin a blog of my devotions and helped me set it up. He is also an active blogger and has been an email subscriber to my journal for several months, so he has been suggesting I expand my distribution by starting a blog to get broader exposure. After reflection and prayer, I concluded God was in this, so he is helping me set up my blog site. This brief autobiography is my first entry.
He returned to Ukraine, then resided there until circumstanced made him decide to move back to US with his young son. This biography was my first post February 29, 2016 .
I have published 600 posts from 2016-2023 automatically sent to all my Facebook friends, published on WordPress to be accessible to anyone curious or seeking a deeper walk with God. I decided to take a sebatical to prepare for a new chapter. In 2014 I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease which affects patient ability to walk, drive, do physical work, and eventually talk. By mid 2023 it became evident our home for last 42 years (previously owned by my parents for previous 44 years and by my mother's grandparents for 39 years before that) would eventually not meet my needs so we decided to sell it and move into 1st floor of a duplex we also owned that was the town school from 1855-1913. Likewise, the property was requiring more maintenance that I was no longer able to keep up with. 2023 involved selling our home and moving into apartment next door and then in early 2025 an opportunity to move closer to our daughter and granddaughter in Kentucky which was completed in May 2025. For a number of months I have been seeking direction seeking God's direction and timing to return to blogging as my journey with Parkinson's continues to unfold with God's guiding hand in mine.
I hope and pray my devotions will continue to be a blessing for you. God certainly has become closer and more real to me since started this blog in 2016. I have spent time with Him studying scripture and praying and listening and writing this journal. I will continue seeking God’s help and will welcome your input to make this site as meaningful as I can and true to God, who is motivating me to create and maintain it. I will also welcome input in order to make format more meaningful going forward.
Don & Arlene McDaniel
In His Service,
Email: mcdanieldonald769@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Don1951
If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 600+ blog posts I have made plus a link to my devotional journal material archives from 2013 to present (https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com/2016/03/02/link-to-dons-devotional-journal-entries-2013/ )
You may also access my Facebook page and request to be my friend and automatically receive my daily journal publications daily. My Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/Dondevotionals/ Many thanks to a pastor and dear brother in Christ in Nepal who set up the above Facebook page to help and encourage and give opportunity for more to explore and use my devotional blog materials. View all posts by donsdevotions
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