November 17, 2016
Today’s reading from Encounter with God

Correct Your Priorities

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Opening Prayer

Holy and Majestic One, You are worthy of my highest praise. I thank You for Your glory seen in Jesus.

Read Haggai 1:1-15

[1] In the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest: [2] This is what the LORD Almighty says: “These people say, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the LORD’s house.'” [3] Then the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai: [4] “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?” [5] Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. [6] You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.” [7] This is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. [8] Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the LORD. [9] “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the LORD Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house. [10] Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. [11] I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the olive oil and everything else the ground produces, on people and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.” [12] Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest, and the whole remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the LORD their God and the message of the prophet Haggai, because the LORD their God had sent him. And the people feared the LORD. [13] Then Haggai, the LORD’s messenger, gave this message of the LORD to the people: “I am with you,” declares the LORD. [14] So the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of the whole remnant of the people. They came and began to work on the house of the LORD Almighty, their God, [15] on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month. In the second year of King Darius,

Scripture taken from the THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Reflect

”Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important” (C. S. Lewis, 1898–1963).

 

Setting priorities is challenging. Keeping them is even more so. In fact, deciding why one thing is more important than another is like hitting a moving target. Life’s circumstances constantly move the target! The people whom God addresses in Haggai are the same ones who stopped rebuilding the Temple in Ezra 5. Now, in the book of Haggai, the prophet who reached out to them with Zechariah, we are given an insider’s perspective on why they did not resume the work. We also hear the messages Haggai preached to them that motivated them to resume working. What did the prophet say to change their hearts?
God’s message was clear and simple: “’Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,’ says the Lord” (Hag. 1:8). But the backstory shows us the real issues. The Lord rebukes the people for focusing on the beauty and comfort of their own houses even though God’s house was unfinished. The Lord also reminds them that their prosperity is about to end. They will run out of money and their crops will not yield a good harvest. What was their excuse? “It isn’t time to work on God’s house yet” (2).
God’s solution to the people’s problems is simple and direct: Ascend the mount, gather wood that has been cut from years earlier and build! This is the message in a nutshell. All that the people needed to do was to reprioritize their focus. God would take care of the rest. But priorities are not easily changed. If only the people had responded with the first of Haggai’s messages from God. We find ourselves with this people. We know that our priorities are not right. But adjusting our lives to change them will take work.

Setting priorities is challenging. Keeping them is even more so. In fact, deciding why one thing is more important than another is like hitting a moving target. Life’s circumstances constantly move the target! The people whom God addresses in Haggai are the same ones who stopped rebuilding the Temple in Ezra 5. Now, in the book of Haggai, the prophet who reached out to them with Zechariah, we are given an insider’s perspective on why they did not resume the work. We also hear the messages Haggai preached to them that motivated them to resume working. What did the prophet say to change their hearts?

God’s message was clear and simple: “’Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,’ says the Lord” (Hag. 1:8). But the backstory shows us the real issues. The Lord rebukes the people for focusing on the beauty and comfort of their own houses even though God’s house was unfinished. The Lord also reminds them that their prosperity is about to end. They will run out of money and their crops will not yield a good harvest. What was their excuse? “It isn’t time to work on God’s house yet” (2).

God’s solution to the people’s problems is simple and direct: Ascend the mount, gather wood that has been cut from years earlier and build! This is the message in a nutshell. All that the people needed to do was to reprioritize their focus. God would take care of the rest. But priorities are not easily changed. If only the people had responded with the first of Haggai’s messages from God. We find ourselves with this people. We know that our priorities are not right. But adjusting our lives to change them will take work.

 

Apply

What does prioritizing your relationship to the Lord mean to the commitments you have with family, friends and other people in your life?

Closing prayer

Father, I easily drown in a sea of priorities. Give me grace to accept that my relationship with You should be the most important goal in my life.

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