Priorities

Perhaps once, long ago, you made a decision to submit your life to God, to accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour, and to live a life pleasing to Him. With this decision came a freedom. You were set free from the penalty of your sins, your debt was paid. And you set off to build a personal relationship with God, a relationship which would cause your life to change dramatically. The way you thought, the way you acted, everything about your day to day life was different.  You set off to rebuild, to repair that which was broken by a life of sin. Only, over time, your priorities shifted. You found yourself working a little less to build on that relationship as other things crept in around you. Perhaps one day you realized that you had stopped working on that relationship at all. 

We all make excuses. “I need to work more overtime to make up the shortfall on my bills. I want my child to excel in the sport they love and that means signing them up in a league that has tournaments every weekend. I really want to see that new movie that came out last week. I’m tired, and I need to make more money, and I just want to watch this one show, and I need a night out with my friends, and I need some time for myself.”  We find ourselves pushing so hard to get ahead and find that we are continually drained and falling short.

One time, long ago, the Israelites were set free. They had been in captivity at the hands of the Babylonian and Persian empires for many years because of their wickedness but the Lord stirred the heart of the man who held them in exile and he made this proclamation:

“Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth the Lord God of heaven has given me. And He has commanded me to build Him a house at Jerusalem which is in Judah. Who is among you of all His people? May his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel (He is God), which is in Jerusalem. And whoever is left in any place where he dwells, let the men of his place help him with silver and gold, with goods and livestock, besides the freewill offerings for the house of God which is in Jerusalem.” (Ezra 1:2-4)

The people of Israel went with the blessings and the provision of a foreign king to rebuild the House of the Lord, the temple in Jerusalem. They were free to go resettle in the land from which they were exiled with one command: They were to rebuild the temple. Fast forward twenty years. The building of the temple had completely ceased. Opposition to the rebuilding had come and it was no longer worth the risk or the effort to them. From where they were standing, they just didn’t have the time or the energy to focus on that anymore. So, their priorities had shifted off of the building of the temple and onto other things. They changed their focus onto rebuilding their own lives. They restored their houses, they reworked the land for harvest, and they set to re-establish their old way of life in Jerusalem. Unfortunately, their lives only got harder from there. They struggled just to survive. There never seemed to be enough food to eat or water to drink. The harder they worked, the further behind they seemed to get.

Then Haggai, a prophet of the Lord, spoke up. “’Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?’ Now therefore, thus says the Lord of Hosts; ‘Consider your ways! You have sown much, and bring in little; You eat, but do not have enough; You drink, but you are not filled with drink; You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; And he who earns wages, earns wages to put them into a bag with holes.’” (Haggai 1:4-6)

The word of the Lord described perfectly how the Israelites felt. They were getting nowhere with all of their hard work. They knew this is what their lives had become but they had no idea why it all seemed this hard. They were God’s chosen people! Why were they struggling to survive? The Lord had the answer to that question as well:

“’Why?’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘Because of my house that is in ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house. Therefore the heavens above you withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its fruit. For I called a drought on the land and the mountains, on the grain and the new wine and the oil, on whatever the ground brings forth, on men and livestock, and on all the labour of your hands.’” (Haggai 1:9b-11)

The Lord was working to get their attention. He caused them to struggle as they worked for their own gain so that they would turn back to Him. As they collectively took their attention off of their own livelihoods and went back to building the temple, God had a promise for them.

“Is the seed still in the barn? As yet, the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have not yielded fruit. But from this day I will bless you.”(Haggai 2:19)

How does this story of the Israelites parallel to our lives today?  Consider the temple of the Old Covenant. Inside the temple was the Holy of Holies, which was the place where the presence of the Lord dwelt. This is where the Ark of the Covenant was placed and inside the Ark of the Covenant was the recording of the laws given to Moses on Mount Sinai. This area was shrouded off from the rest of the temple by a great veil and it was only to be entered once a year by the high priest to give the atonement sacrifice for the sins of the people. We read in the account of Jesus’ crucifixion that this veil was torn in two at the time of His death (Matthew 27:51). In the new covenant, the Lord no longer houses the Holy of Holies within a physical temple. Rather, the Holy of Holies has been made accessible to us all, anywhere, by the blood of Christ. His Spirit no longer dwells in a physical temple, it dwells within us, His Spiritual temple.

“You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 2:5)

 The laws that were once set in the Ark of the Covenant have now been placed, by Him, within our hearts.

“’This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,’ then He adds, ‘their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.’” (Hebrews 10:16-17)

Jesus residing within us causes us to become His temple. When we neglect this spiritual temple to focus instead on our “flesh”, our personal desires and ambitions, our work amounts to nothing! The struggle stops when we lay down our own desires and pick up His. Chasing after our own desires is like trying to swim against the current. You become exhausted while getting nowhere. Our blessing comes through putting our focus on His spiritual temple - not our bodies, but His Spirit living within us! It is time to take a good, hard look at ourselves. How is it right that we live out our personal desires while our spiritual lives are in ruins? Our spiritual drought is in response to our spiritual stinginess towards God!

We need a wake up message like the one Haggai delivered to the Israelites and we can find it in the words of Jesus.

“Therefore, do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” (Matthew 6:31-33)

To be honest, the things that Jesus mentioned in this passage most likely don’t even register as a worry in the everyday lives of most of us in North America. Perhaps today Jesus would say not to worry about such things as our positions at work, how big or new our houses and cars are, whether our wardrobe is in line with the current fashion trends, whether we have an iPhone 4s or 6s, whether our televisions are 17” or 70”, whether we got down to some tropical destination for a vacation this year… We waste so much time and energy and money focusing on the things we want. Even if we did seek the kingdom first, I doubt many of these things would be added to us because, if we're being honest with ourselves, they are not desires of the Spirit, they are desires of the flesh! 

We need a shift in priorities. I need a shift in priorities. Perhaps you gave up on the building of your temple. Perhaps you’ve neglected your spiritual growth in your relationship with God because opposition rose up, because life got hard. Start now! It’s not too late! Will life get easier? No, probably not. But there will be fruit! Galatians 5:16-25 talks of the difference of the products of life in the flesh and life in the Spirit. I won’t speak on the works of the flesh. We see them every day. But the fruit of the Spirit. Those are worth mentioning. Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. These are the things that I desire in my life. These are the blessings that follow when we build up our relationship with God, through Christ.