Building
The last few Wednesday services we have been looking at a few of the last books in the Old Testament; Ezra, Nehemiah and Haggai. In these books you see some of the people of Israel return from 70 years in exile. What greets them however is a ruined temple, an abandoned city and residents of the land who are not very happy to see them. Yet they were excited to return and with Joy laid the foundation of the temple. The young men celebrated…and then the work stopped.
Why?
Discouragement from the generation that remembered “How it used to be” and “it was better in the old days” (Ezra chapter 3)
You can combine that with an unhealthy focus on what those around them might do (Nehemiah).
These two combined to take the wind out of their sails and a the work came to a dead stop. Instead they started building their own homes and focusing on their own security and comfort. They said to themselves “God will tell us when the time is right!” despite the fact that God had set them free and given them a commission to build.
And for fourteen years they self-focused until God sent Haggai to them. He asks them a simple question. What are your priorities? What are you focused on?
Fair questions. In fact those are questions I think we need to ask ourselves today.
Are we God’s chosen people?
Have we been placed under the Great Commission?
Do our priorities reflect that?
Who are you listening to?
As Christians, those who live under the name of Christ, these questions should never be far our mind. We do live under God’s grace, but we are also His ambassador. As such we have an obligation to give Him our best. To not worry about those around us, to not listen to those who want to dwell in the past, and to respond to His call with “Here I am Lord.”
And when you turn our focus upon the Lord, I promise you that you will be amazed by what you see.
Not a reminder of what you can’t do, but a reminder of what Christ has done.
You will not see a broken temple, but a reminder that God dwells in you.
Those around you will fade away and God will become louder.
A call to look forward, to be still and know that He is God, and to boldly live in the world, even as we are not off the world.
Working in the Kingdom He built,
Pastor Dan