Priority and Prosperity

All your hard work will be for nothing.

--- The Bible

The book of Haggai opens (Haggai 1:1-12) with a pretty disturbing scene. The Israelites who are back from exile are not really living very well and prosperous. The Lord, our Lord, says this is because He has made it so. In verse 9 He says "You expected much, but received only a little. And when you brought it home, I made that little disappear. " Sounds pretty cruel for a God who is love, right?

Well, when you hear the Israelites' side of the story, we understand the situation better. Our God brought them out of exile. Our God helped them re-establish their lives. And how did they thank Him? They kept putting off the building of the Lord's temple. They kept putting it off saying they didn't have time and money - and they went on to built beautiful, posh houses for themselves. Such a thing won't fly with the Lord. That's what He said.

In our own lives today, we forget that our bodies are the living temples for God's Spirit. He resides within us and provides us with direction, guidance, strength and comfort. We are however, more bothered about looking good, smelling good and sounding good, rather than the state of condition that we treat/respect God's dwelling place. God is God. He commands respect. He commands our everything.

Let's give that to Him, then. Cheerio!

Favourites

Be fair with everyone, and don't have any favorites.

--- The Bible

In 1 Timothy chapter 5, Paul urges Timothy to be fair to everyone. This may seem like a task that's simple enough. However, in our day to day lives, we segregate and build prejudices towards certain people, sometimes, towards certain sects of people.

Like the study gang at school/college... A particular group of people at work. Certain people at church. Tonnes of examples abound. But we need to be fair to everyone, and not have any favourites. The only way I see that we can do this, is to fully rely on God. Fully fully fully. There's no other way that we can do this. Self-analysis in such situations helps a lot. I suggest that we take a few moments every week to check if we're partial towards certain people. If so, let's commit it to the Lord. He's been on earth. He knows what it's like. He can help us with it.

Amen, to that.

Sorry

There's been a break of about 5 months since the last post. Real sorry about that. We're planning to kick off regularly from now.

Keep us in your prayers.