Project 119: Haggai 1
| Project 119
This week's devotions are written by MBBC Student Ministry Intern Allison McSwain.
In Zephaniah 3 we read of a promised restoration the Lord will bring to His people. In Haggai, we see that promise is fulfilled. At this point in history, the Babylonian empire has collapsed and been replaced by a different powerhouse, Persia. King Cyrus of Persia allows the Jewish exiles to return to Jerusalem in 538 B.C., and Haggai is the first writing prophet to address these returnees.
I’m sure these former exiles were overjoyed to finally return home to the land the Lord gave them, to the place where His presence once dwelled in the temple. However, the temple lay in ruins just as the Babylonians had left it. The message the Lord sends through Haggai is a convicting one. The returnees have their priorities vastly out of order. The Jews live comfortably in paneled houses while the house of God, the temple, is still a pile of rubble. The people say it’s not yet time to rebuild the Lord’s house, but the Lord says multiple times—“Consider your ways.”
You and I are not immune from having misplaced priorities, are we? It’s easy to get so wrapped up in the “self”—my time, my schedule, my desires—that we neglect the Lord our God, the reason for our existence. Ask yourself today, where are you prioritizing your walk with Christ in the midst of your day to day life? Consider your ways. Prayer, Bible reading, gathering with the Lord’s faithful in corporate worship…where do they fall on your list? In all reality, we should place our time with the Lord above all other things on our schedules, but this is often easier said than done. We are too busy and too tired to give God the time He is due.
Ask God to order your priorities in the way that most glorifies Him. Let us stray from being too comfortable in our own homes on days when we need to be in the Lord’s home.
Lord, help me avoid the mistake of the Israelites and put You first in all I do!
Haggai 1 (ESV):
The Command to Rebuild the Temple
1 In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest: 2 “Thus says the LORD of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the LORD.” 3 Then the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, 4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?5 Now, therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways. 6 You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.
7 “Thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways. 8 Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the LORD.9 You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the LORD of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. 10 Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. 11 And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors.”
The People Obey the LORD
12 Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the LORD their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the LORD their God had sent him. And the people feared the LORD. 13 Then Haggai, the messenger of the LORD, spoke to the people with the LORD’s message, “I am with you, declares the LORD.” 14 And the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and worked on the house of the LORD of hosts, their God, 15 on the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.