READ: Haggai 1:7-11: Thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘Consider your ways! Go up to the mountains and bring wood and build the temple, that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified,’ says the LORD. ‘You looked for much, but indeed it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. 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 for 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 labor of your hands.’
Haggai’s message is difficult to accept. That is why, in these verses, he emphasizes three times that God Himself is literally speaking through him. That is why Haggai speaks in the first person: ‘I, the LORD of hosts.’
The people, the high priest, and the governor are directly called by the LORD Himself to look at reality—where God, as the Almighty, governs everything. He is the LORD of hosts. Everything is in His hands: He gives or withholds, He makes rich or poor, He exalts or humbles.
The people do not only have the wrong priorities, but they do not consider Him at all. They think they can simply go their own way and pursue their own interests, assuming the LORD will approve.
But now, take a critical look at your own actions. See that you are forgetting and neglecting Me and My service. You show no love, no zeal, no reverence. You were only concerned with yourself!
Instead, you should seek to please and glorify Me (v.8), to seek My Kingdom (Matt. 6:33). I have the right to that. That is why, as the Almighty God, I have ensured that you had little harvest. I brought drought over everything and everyone.
There is only one solution: To seek and serve Me in love. Therefore, get to work immediately by fetching wood and rebuilding My house.
Do we also see something of God’s discipline?
Sing: Ps. 85:3