God wants each of His people to remain faithful to His decrees and not stray from the path of righteousness. This is not easy, especially in the flesh that often controls us. It takes determination to maintain personal integrity, which can be interpreted as the determination to align what we do with His word and our daily life behavior. 

After successfully pioneering the rebuilding of Jerusalem, the Jews sought to maintain and build their lives. The rebuilding was not only in the form of physical and material aspects, but also the spiritual dimension of the nation. This was achieved through the determination to obey His laws. This is what is illustrated through our reading this time. In Nehemiah 13:1-2, we see the nation's conscious effort to re-read the book of Moses as a guide for life at that time. In verse 2, through a reference to the story of the Ammonites and Moabites, they decided to avoid what God did not want by keeping themselves pure and separating the Israelites who intermarried with foreign nations. 

They also endeavored not to repeat the same mistakes of that time. Purity of life and integrity must be upheld. Nehemiah was furious when he found out that Elyasib the priest was abusing his authority by giving Tobiah a large room to live in. It was supposed to be a place to put the various tools of worship. To make matters worse, the donations for the Levites were never given. There was a provision for this because the Levites dedicated their lives entirely to the service of the temple. As a result, the Levites could not perform their duties to the fullest because they had to take care of the fields to support themselves. All these deviations were firmly straightened out by Nehemiah. There should be no compromise in upholding God's word and maintaining personal integrity. 

We can also emulate Nehemiah's firmness in our daily lives. The struggle to live with integrity is not easy, especially in maintaining the determination to obey God's word. It requires an uncompromising and decisive attitude in realizing it. Often sin comes when we compromise a lot on unrighteousness, instead of repentance we produce justifications to justify our sins and mistakes. Start persevering to obey His word and strive to realize personal integrity with God's guidance alone.