Haggai 1-3 -- Pollution In Our Lives

The people in this book were experiencing drought just as we are right now, but there was a definite reason for it.  They’d been back in the Holy Land for 20 years after their captivity in Babylon, yet they’d failed to do much of anything toward what was to have been their first priority – rebuilding the Temple.  Instead, they’d not only completed their own homes.  They’d also spent a lot of time making their homes grand, with even paneled walls.  Yet as long as God’s house (and therefore their spiritual condition) lay in ruins, they could expect nothing but drought.

They got the message and began to work, but they quickly got discouraged, thinking about how inadequate the rebuilt Temple was going to be compared to the last one.  God let them know that His Spirit was among them and told them to be strong and fear not:  One day (still future) God would shake the nations and use the treasures that fell out to make the Temple better than it has ever been.

Perhaps the key thing I read today came from Haggai’s third prophecy.  God had two questions for the people to ask the priests:

1)       If holy meat touched other food, would the other food become holy?  The correct answer was “No”.

2)      If an unclean person touched holy meat, would the holy meat become unclean?  The correct answer was “Yes”

My commentary says:  “He that is holy imparts no holiness to anything else, but he that is defiled COMMUNICATES DEFILEMENT.”  I’d say that in medical terms, that would mean, “Defilement is contagious.  Holiness is not.”

That first part is pretty easy to see.  If we are striving to live the way God would have us live, Satan will certainly be going after us.  We’re marked targets, and if we choose to put ourselves alongside people, music, tv shows, movies, magazines, or anything else that does not glorify God, then we are at risk of being spiritually contaminated by it.

Regarding the second part, though, the desire for holiness has to come from within, aided by the Holy Spirit.  We can’t obtain our holiness via someone else’s actions.

I like the way my commentary boiled it down:  “Work and worship do not sanctify sin, but sin contaminates work and worship.”  For the people Haggai was addressing, their offerings were polluted and they were unclean as long as the Temple was in ruins, my commentary added, because they were out of God’s will.

If there is besetting sin in our lives, it pretty well makes our work for God and our worship of Him polluted.  No amount of “doing things for God” will ever make that sin okay.

Father, just as I would never hook a sewer pipe up to a fresh water pipe and think of drinking the water, I’m reminded that my worship of You is polluted when there is sin in my life.  The only way to remove the pollution is to remove the sin.  Period.  You deserve pure worship, Father, and it doesn’t matter if the sin involves attitudes, thoughts, or actions on my part.  It’s all still polluting my relationship with You and my worship of You.  Help me not to let that happen.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford