Hope Crossing
Community Church

Sunday Worship:
Eastgate Cinema
5202 High Crossing Boulevard
Madison, WI    53704

Church Offices:
108 W. Main St. Suite G
Sun Prairie, WI    53590

Telephone:608.834.1238

Transformed Living

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The Minor Prophets

August 28

 

Haggai 1:13-15 Then Haggai, the LORD's messenger, gave this message of the LORD to the people: "I am with you," declares the LORD. 14 So the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of the whole remnant of the people. They came and began to work on the house of the LORD Almighty, their God, 15 on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month in the second year of King Darius.

DO YOU like the big names? Don’t let them obscure the message. Let God’s Spirit work in you as you dwell on this extraordinary event.
          What is so extraordinary about building the LORD’s temple? After all, isn’t it only a building? We even talk in our church of how caring for a building gets in the way of caring for people, and we have to be careful that our work is a response to God’s will. So what’s the big deal?
          Two things are big deal. First, God has changed the hearts of Israel’s political and religious leaders. He has changed their hearts. They were looking at their own needs and the immediate needs of the community. Now they are looking to God’s desires, his needs to increase his presence in Jerusalem, to be worshiped as the Living God.
          The second reason why this is an extraordinary event is the Temple itself. Think for a minute of a people that has for 3 generations had no common place to worship God. They had lost sight of God himself. Now it’s time to begin to see God again, to get to know him, to worship him and to follow his ways. This God’s nation. He has punished them. Now he wants to heal them and bring them back into his presence.
          When our lives change from a focus on ourselves to a focus on the things of God, it is an extraordinary event. When God stirs your heart, take it seriously. Take it joyfully that he loves you enough to do that.
          God coming to us, to you, is indeed something special. He doesn’t have to. But he does. Take hold of it and rejoice!