“Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai, the prophet. Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?”
Haggai 1:3–4
I want you to catch the picture of what God is saying through Haggai right here. He’s rebuking His people for taking care of themselves and their own preferences, but not providing for His people, and specifically, the priority of their worship of God and the rebuilding, specifically, of the temple.
Haggai 1:3–4 Is a Call to Evaluate Our Priorities
“Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in these nice paneled houses while this house, the house of God, the place of worship among God’s people, lies in ruins?” And the issue is, clearly, about the priority among God’s people. They have prioritized themselves and their preferences and their comfort over the worship of God, and it’s a pretty penetrating couple of verses to cause all of us to ask today, what are we prioritizing in our lives?
And not just what would we say we’re prioritizing, but to look at the evidence of our lives. Look at how we spend our time, how we spend our money, what our affections and our emotions are most excited by, what we think about, what we dwell on, and just to ask is God at the center, the supreme center, of it all? Does the way we spend our time show that God is the center around which our lives revolve? Does the way we spend our money show that God and His purposes and His priorities are what are most important to us, is the way we speak, the conversations we have, is the way we live, the decisions we make.
Do we show on a daily basis, are we showing today, that God is the supreme center, the supreme priority, in our lives? That we want His worship, His glory, the spread of His name and His fame more than anything else. Is that what our lives are showing? Or are our lives showing a priority on ourselves and our preferences and a million other things in this world?
Haggai 1:3–4 Is a Call to Prioritize God Over Everything Else
God, we pray that You would recenter our priorities today all around You, and not even You at the top of a priority list and then other things behind You, but You at the center of everything we do. God, we pray that You’d help us to glorify You and our work in school and in our rest. You would help us to glorify You with our thoughts, that You would be the center of our thoughts, our desires, our words, God, that we would speak Your word continually, and Deuteronomy 6 kind of a way all the time.
God, we pray that our time would be taken up with seeking You, knowing You more, meditating on Your word and obeying it. God, we pray that it would be evident to people around us that You are the supreme center of our lives, the way we live, the way we talk about You.
Praying for the Priority of the Gospel
God, we pray that unbelievers today would know more about You because of us and because You are at the center of our lives and pray that You would help us to share the gospel today. Help us to prioritize the spread of Your worship over our reputation or our comfort. God, we confess, we have clearly not prioritized Your great commission, the spread of the gospel among all the nations.
Lord, forgive us for not prioritizing the spread of the gospel to over 3 billion people who’ve never heard it before. God, forgive us for that. We want to prioritize what You have clearly told us to prioritize. We want to make disciples of all the nations. Help us, God, to do that, to prioritize what is most important to You, what brings most glory to You, trusting that this will be best for us and best for others around us and best for the nations.
God, we pray that You would help us to live with right ordered priorities today, flowing from You, being the supreme center of our lives according to Your word, and for the spread of your worship in light of Haggai 1:3-4. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, and Don’t Hold Back.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
