SCRIPTURE: Haggai 2:10-19
OBSERVATION:
God is challenging His people to see the poisonous affect of their sinful hearts, how it stains and pollutes their religious observances (even their temple building). If their hearts are still self-centered, even while building the temple, it defiles their efforts. Religious observances do not make sinful hearts holy, but sinful hearts will make religious observances unholy. This is a call to honour and trust God, not just build the temple. God will take care of them, not the temple. He will bless them, if they seek Him first. If all they are doing is appeasing God`s anger, while still inwardly longing for personal pleasure and comfort, then their temple building will amount to nothing. Trust me, says God, and I will bless you!
APPLICATION:
Spiritual practices do not of themselves make the heart holy. My heart must be sincere, it must be serious, it must honestly seek first God and the things of God. Church attendance and offerings and nice clothes and spiritual language will not make me holy; my heart is sinful, it needs to be changed, with God`s help, in order for me to be holy. Do I really want to honour the Lord, to seek Him and His purpose first? Am I just going through the religious motions?
PRAYER:
Lord, help me to seek You first, and Your Kingdom, and to trust that You will take care of everything else. Amen.
Amen to that … so true!
When it mentions the phrase in the book of Matthew about “in that place there shall be weeping an gnashing of teeth” it brings the picture of despair. And that despair, I believe is the result of realizing the reality that if a person had only truely trusted God in what He said, there would have been hope.
I don’t want to wait until then to find that out – I want to trust God now whether I can see the BIG picture or not …
“I struck all the work of your hands with blight, mildew and hail, yet you did not turn to me.” Does God cause suffering? Are all the bad things that happen to me caused by God? How can someone who loves us cause us to suffer like this?
God does not cause suffering. Suffering is the consequence of sin, of living in a sin-stained world, an outworking of the curse of death. But sin, suffering, death and hell are not stronger than God. He does not cause them, but He does direct their destruction to His own purpose. And His purpose is to get us to come back to Him, where we will find rescue from suffering.
Bad things happen to me because I live in a sinful world order, and because my own sin nature impacts me. God directs the outworking of this suffering for His purpose. In one sense, all suffering is instructive, showing us our problem and our need for help. Sin is strong, but thankfully God is stronger. And everything He does He does for a purpose, an ultimately good purpose.
In fact, because God is perfect, and perfectly good, whatever He does (and allows) is always the best case scenario. Anything other than what God allows/does, would result in less than the best result. This is hard to imagine, when things often seem so hard, so bad. But can we imagine things worse? Yes, it could always be worse. And God, Who knows the outcome of every possible path, has chosen the best (not easiest) one.
Easy for me to say. Yes, I admit it. It scares me to say it. But the alternative to trusting God is despair, and I don’t want to go there.
The Lord my God has given me His Word and basically said – Do this and Live! I have my Guide but my motive, my desire must be in tune with God. My heart and my hands need to be holy/wholey unto the Lord. Yet all too often my pride, my desires get in the way of serving Him. What’s in it for me? Why do it if there is no return? All my living must be must be pure and can only be done through His power – His Spirit. May my thoughts always turn toward ‘home’ – that all is for Jesus.
Purify my heart Lord,
Let me be as gold and precious silver.
Purify my heart Lord,
Let me be as gold, pure gold.
Refiner’s fire
My heart’s one desire is to be holy
Set apart for You, Lord.
I choose to be holy,
Set apart for You my master,
Ready to do Your will.
Purify my heart Lord,
Cleanse me from my sin and make me holy.
Purify my heart Lord,
Cleanse me from my sin, deep within.