Today is…

a fine day for a little home improvement.

“Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies desolate?”  Haggai 1:4 NASB

Life is a rat race, this much is certain.

There is always a desire for more money for more things to make us comfortable and provide us with a higher standard of living. We think we must work harder and longer to obtain more physical comfort for our days on earth.

That new car, boat, RV, or swimming pool certainly does beckon to us.

There is nothing wrong with having a desire to live a comfortable life and reap the rewards of our labor, but in our effort to make our homes more enjoyable, our lives more comfortable, and our leisure time more fulfilling, are we neglecting God?

After King Cyrus dreams that the people of Israel who had been exiled could return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple, work was begun but opposition to the work, as well as indifference on the part of the people, caused the work to come to a halt. People became more focused on their own needs and their own desires than on God.

Haggai was very good in pointing out the seriousness of their mistake. Placing God anywhere but first affects everything else in our lives in a negative manner, whether it is immediately apparent or not.

If we don’t think of God first, how can we make decisions? How can we identify which is the right path? If our concern for God comes after our concern for ourselves, how do we expect Him to put us first?

The Jews were negligent in not making the rebuilding of the temple a priority. Through that negligence, they were making a statement, and it is not a statement that we want to make.

God comes before everything else. With God in front of us, we can count on Him to lead us in the right direction. We can count on Him to warn us of danger heading our way. We can count on Him to enrich us in ways we cannot imagine.

It is time to do a little work on our relationship with God.  A little help in improving God’s house will go a long way to improving ours.

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Taken from “TODAY IS….A Gift From God”, (C) 2013 Tony Casson