Priorities

December 22

Haggai 1-2

Psalm 145:8-13

Proverbs 30:21-23

Revelation 14:1-14

Priorities

“So now, thus says Yahweh of hosts, ‘Set your heart to consider your ways!  You have sown much, but bring in little; you eat, but there is not enough to be satisfied; you drink, but there is not enough to become drunk; you put on clothing, but no one is warm enough; and he who earns, earns wages to put into a bag with holes…You look for much, but behold, it comes to little; and you bring it home, and I blow it away.  Why?’  declares Yahweh of hosts, ‘Because of My house, which lies waste, while each of you runs to his own house.’” 

Haggai 1:5-6, 9 LSB

In 538 BC, Cyrus King of Persia issued a decree allowing the Jewish exiles to return to their land and rebuild their Temple.  Two years later, only fifty thousand people had returned to Jerusalem under Zerubbabel’s leadership.  It took two years to lay the foundation for the new Temple but then they stopped because of strong opposition from the Samaritans (Ezra 4-6).  Also, many of the older Jews who had seen Solomon’s Temple wept when they learned that the rebuilt Temple was going to be smaller and less majestic (Ezra 3:12).  Fourteen years later, the Temple project was still unfinished while the people had gotten busy building their own houses.  They had grown spiritually lazy and had allowed their personal lives to take priority over spiritual matters.  God sent Haggai with a strong message about misplaced priorities.  Haggai called them out by explaining that their personal finances were failing because the Lord was not their first priority.  His message was that God cannot be first in your life if He is last in your financial decisions.  Proverbs 3:9 says, “Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.” NIV  The opposite is also true.  If you dishonor the Lord with your wealth and prioritize other things above Him, He will not honor your finances.  He will make sure that money slips through your hands as quickly as you make it.  Haggai explained this principle in 1:9-10.  Thankfully, the people responded immediately to the Lord’s rebuke.  They obeyed God and resumed work on the Temple. 

The message of Haggai is not only a message about finances, but about priorities.  The people were so focused on rebuilding their lives after they returned from exile that they were neglecting their spiritual commitments.  Not only was God not the most important thing in their lives, He had become an afterthought. They had gotten so busy with other things, that they had neglected the most important thing.  I think most of us can relate to them.  We have all had seasons when we were so busy with the daily commitments of life that we gave little thought to spiritual matters or we look back and realize that we have just been going through the motions spiritually.  We often aren’t doing bad things, we just aren’t doing the best things.  I have often heard that the enemy of the best is the good. At those times, the best thing we can do, as the Israelites did, is immediately turn back to God, confess and ask Him to help us get our priorities straight.  “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”  Matthew 6:33 NIV