Haggai: What's Next?Sample

What God Requires Next

At some stage in your life, you’ve probably tackled a goal that felt insurmountable – like a weight loss programme, or a job you didn’t feel qualified for, or even a pandemic you thought you wouldn’t live through. Perhaps, as you’ve taken daily steps towards achieving a particular goal, you’ve realised that it’s in fact possible, and attainable, and what was once a terrible burden becomes a great joy. The pursuit of holiness might feel unmanageable, but as you persevere, and make progress, you’ll discover that the burden is really a blessing. You’ll realise you were never the One carrying the burden at all.

We’ve seen through Haggai that God relentlessly draws His people back into a relationship with Him. We also see His clarity around how He calls them to live: holy, like Him. Astonishingly, God’s holiness is actually dangerous for human beings. Because of His perfection, omnipresence, and omniscience, our unholiness can’t go undetected or undealt with. God draws us to Himself, but if we’re to thrive in His presence, we need to become holy like Him. This may seem like a massive burden for us to bear, but it can be a joyful blessing instead, because we pursue holiness in God’s strength, not our own.

Haggai 2:11–14 reveals that holiness can’t be transferred – but unholiness is contagious. God’s people hoped to become holy simply by hanging out in His temple, but their hearts weren’t in the right place, and they still caught the unholiness of the culture around them. When something unclean or unholy encounters something corruptible (like us), making it unholy too, something holy is needed to break that transaction: God! Not only does God possess the holiness we need but He is able to make us receptive to His holiness by changing our hearts and renewing our minds. So, what God requires of us in terms of holiness, He himself provides both in source and sustenance (Haggai 2:15–19). The rebuilding of the temple was a tangible expression of the changed hearts of God’s people. He met them in their first tentative steps of obedience, promising the abundant blessing of His presence.

Jesus was destroyed in death and took upon Himself the unholiness of the world, so we might become holy like Him too. Let’s celebrate that the day Jesus rose from the dead, our living temple was rebuilt. The blessing of God’s presence will forever flow to those who come to Him. And let’s encourage one another to pursue holiness in what we say, see, and seek.