A few weeks ago I was reading through the book of Haggai and some verses caught my eye. It isn’t very often that I find myself reading in these pages of my Bible. As one pastor said one time “Lets turn to the ‘clean pages’ of our Bibles.” We find Haggai among the Minor Prophet books of the Old Testament. Among the books of the Bible that we hardly every consider to have wisdom for our daily lives.
Well in the first chapter I found some verses that struck a cord with me. We find Haggai 1:2-4 2″Thus says the Lord of Hosts: These people say the time has not 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 time for you yourselves to dwell in paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?” In these few verses I see that God is not pleased with His people. The background is; Haggai is speaking to the remnant of Israelite’s who have returned from captivity to Jerusalem.
While the “house of the Lord” is in ruins the Israelite’s have been more concerned with building their own dwellings and living their own lives. I see that in my own life and across the board in churches in the United States. I find myself being more concerned about what is going on in my own life than serving the Lord first and foremost. My first concern needs to be with bringing honor and glory to the Lord. Instead most of the time I am more worries about what is going on in my life.
I think we as Americans struggle with this concept mainly because of our culture. We have let our culture take over our churches. Looking at my beliefs as a Christian I find that at times I have developed my beliefs by using my culture to interpret scripture. I take scripture and use my surrounding culture to make scripture easier to follow or believe. Instead I need to be taking the Bible and using it as a whole to define how I live.
One big struggle that I think can make us Christians in the United States stumble, is the American dream. We are told that if we have a successful job, happy family, lots of stuff, freedom, and etc; then we will be happy. I find that this is only a dream. I have pursed parts of this dream and have found it to be wanting. I find as Christians we take the Bible and try to run it through this philosophy of the American Dream. In doing so we can take a lot of what Christ calls us to do and minimize it.
In Matthew 19:16-22 we find Jesus speaking with a rich young ruler. The ruler is looking for and easy answer to eternal life. Perhaps he may think he has already found the answer to eternal life and is looking to Jesus to justify his answer. Instead we see Jesus asking the ruler to do something totally against what the culture at that time would expect. Jesus tells the ruler to get rid of all his possessions and to come follow Jesus. After this command by Jesus we find the ruler walking away. There are many times I have minimized this passage by looking at it through my eyes that have been clouded by the American dream.
All this started with just a few verses in Haggai. I feel like I could go on and on and on and on, but I think by now most of you are probably bored. Most likely by now you have point that I am trying to make. From these few verses in Haggai I am looking at my life to see how I can put God first. I need to make sure that He is at the focal point of my life. I can’t be putting my own life a head of what He wants for me. In the end it has to be all about Him.
A Trek through the Wilderness 