Sunday School Lesson - March 29th

Nehemiah 6:1-16

Spiritual Preparation Through Bible Study - by Bryan Beyer, professor of Old Testament at Columbia Biblical Seminary & School of Missions, Columbia, SC.

In my approximately 25 years of teaching college students, I have seen students succeed and students fail. Some students consistently do well on every aspect of a course they take with me. Others do well on written projects but not so well on exams. Still others do fine on exams but not as well on written projects. Students who struggle do so for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they lack the aptitude to achieve good grades while others take too many courses at once. The common factor among all who succeed is persistence. Keep pressing on, I tell them. Complete each assignment until the end of the semester and finish well. You’re in this for the long haul; be faithful. Students who hang in there typically succeed in their college studies.

Adults often find it easy to get enthused about a new project—a diet, an exercise program, a savings plan, a home improvement project, a new ministry, or the like. But it often doesn’t take long for their initial enthusiasm to wear off. Before we know it, we’re off the diet, we haven’t exercised in over a week, we’ve spent our savings plan money on a new gizmo, our home improvement project seems to be gathering dust, and we’ve been away from the new ministry idea so long we figure we might as well drop it. Often in such cases, persistence means the difference between success and failure. Nehemiah’s example encourages adults to hang in there and see our projects through to the end.

Do you sometimes step up to serve the Lord, only to fade away before the task is finished? This lesson calls you to determine to remain focused on the work until you have seen it through to completion.