Pray the word with David Platt is a resource from radical.net.

Nehemiah chapter 9 verse and they stood up in their place and read from the

book of the law of the Lord their God for a quarter of the day, for another quarter of it they made

confession and worship the Lord their God. Did you hear that? For a quarter of the day, God's people read from the Book of the Law of the Lord,

they're God.

We don't know exactly, precisely how many hours that was.

Was it like six hours, like a full quarter of the day,

or was it a quarter of the day when they would be awake?

We don't know for sure, but it was ours. It was a long time. It was a significant chunk of

their day that they're just listening to God's word being read.

And then for another quarter of the day again, we don't know the precise length, but for hours. For a significant portion of their day.

They made confession and worshipped in response to God's word.

You put it together, it was half of their day, just reading, hearing the word of God and confessing sin and worshiping.

When was the last time you spent half a day doing this?

When was the last time, whether alone or with God's people, and that's what's happening here, and This is a gathering of God's people that they're doing together

That we read and listen to the word of God for hours and then made confession and worshipped for hours.

If this is what God's people were doing in Nehemiah

as God was rebuilding his people then, how much more do we need to do this today?

Does there need to be sometimes, some point in our lives, whether individually or together or both, where we spend a half day

just listening to and responding to God's word and confession and worship.

I don't know how this needs to play out in each one of our lives, but I want to encourage each of us to consider

seriously how we can put this picture into practice in our day.

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