Haggai

These are notes collected from studying with brothers in Christ. Anything good comes from the Lord. Everything else is from us!

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Haggai 1:7-9 has been speaking to me BIGTIME! I’ve shared it with multiple people since reading it yesterday morning.

It says:

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.

Reflections:

• Everyone is busy with their own house. I’ve thought about this over the years as speaking to us making an idol of family (which I think it definitely applies!). But this time around reading it, I also thought about it as sometimes how Christians might be getting too inwardly focused on their church (lowercase “c”) and missing the work to build up God’s Church (big “C”) all around. Or even it becomes just keeping up with status quo of “doing church” that misses opportunities to build up the church. Don’t misunderstand. A BIG part of building up God’s Church is growing and edifying each other in your own church. Just so long as you don’t miss the bigger church in your geography, and what it means to build that bigger church up. Next point…
• “Go up into the mountains” – that is a LOT harder than going down a hill…or even walking on a level plane! LOL! Going up requires a special effort that fights against the force of gravity. Yet that’s what they were called to do.
• “Bring down timber and build my house” – Again, back to point 1. If we ONLY try to build up existing believers around us we could be guilty of neglecting to look to God’s harvest all around and bring in new converts to Christ (like bringing down new timber). This is God’s charge to us, though: My church will be expanded to it’s full number through doing the hard work of looking for new believers who will help to expand the spiritual tabernacle of God (church with big C).
• Though we fight gravity to build things God’s way (“go up into the mountains”), we fight God to build our things our ways. I’d rather fight gravity any day than fight God :slightly_smiling_face:

Struck also by Haggai 2:1-9..

just how God shaking the nations results in his kingdom growing… and look at 2:9–“in this place [his temple…ultimately points to His church] I will give peace”. I think that’s set as a contrast to the unrest in the nations. That the church is the place of peace between God and man, firstly. From that point it grows into peace between brothers and sisters. May we have eyes to see what He’s doing in the shaking happening around us.