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. (Haggai 1:9 ESV) Here’s the more plain translation of this passage: “You had all this ambition and you failed. The reason you failed was because you were too self absorbed and stingy. Ultimately, you forgot about the God who gives.” The question we glean from this passage is: how can we (in an over secularized 21st century federalized state) be expected to remember God when things are good or bad? That’s simple: build God’s house. I’m a professional Christian and it’s hard for ME to remember God. These Israelites were living in a partial theocracy, and they had a hard time remembering God. The excuse I give is that I can’t do God’s “work” without being able to take care of my stuff first, and when I think that, I take away from God what He has been doing for me all along. Here is what is implied in this passage: God took care of you and me, why in the world would we think that we are somehow more responsible for what God always did now? I’m not saying, nor is the Scripture saying that we shouldn’t work hard, nor is it saying that we should not be ambitious. Rather it is saying that when we start off in our professional or personal careers, we trusted God, and brought to God, the respect and honor due to Him by loving other people and caring for them. In essence, our ambitions were for a greater purpose than to fill ourselves up. This is why we had success in the beginning, and this is probably why we are having difficulties now– we are working and living for all the wrong reasons. I’m not talking about making profits, it’s not wrong to make a profit. What is wrong is for you to live an unfulfilled life; and moreover, its wrong to think that you are the most important person in your life. I don’t know where you are in life. But I do know where you should be. You should be chasing God by loving the very people around you, building them up with your life and ambitions. You should not be trying to seek some self-absorbed vanity that leaves your life empty. I dare you to see what happens to our lives when we try build God’s house today.
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