Haggai Chapter 1 - Putting God First

It has been my deep pleasure these last few months in reading Desiring God and When I Don't Desire God. Honestly, it's taken me a lot longer to read these books than I usually take to read books. However, they have had such an effect on my mind that it's been very hard to make it through a few pages at a time without having to put the book down and process. Recently, in one of the chapters of When I Don't Desire God, John Piper laid out some Bible memory tips (They're on page 122 of that book if you're interested). The prospect of what he suggested to do made me a little hesitant and there was a dash of unbelief that I could do it. But I decided to do it anyways! In a nut shell, he recommends that we go about learning whole books of scripture at a time. Even with my doubt, I set about doing what he said and it ended up being wonderful!

This brings us to the point of this post: I am in the process of memorizing the first chapter of Haggai, and I have received a lot of revelation that I would love to share with you about it. I'm going to be putting up a post for every verse or two, going through the whole chapter. For all of you who, like me, have struggled with reading some of the Minor Prophets, I ask you to not only enjoy Haggai with me, but to deeply understand all that God is saying to us still through this book.

Let's start with Haggai 1:1 - "In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest."

Now when I first encountered this verse in my memorization, I didn't think much of it. I looked at it in the same way that I look at the beginning of some of the epistles. I thought that while it does give some background to the text and helps us understand what's happening, how can it really be helpful? Above all, I thought, "Let's get to the good stuff already!" However, God stopped me in my tracks on the next day.

I was following the instructions that John Piper had given and was now on the second verse. However, to keep everything fresh in your memory, he recommends speaking yesterday's verse again ten times before moving forward. At the time, I thought nothing of it. However, as the Word of God soaked into me, I got a revelation about the verse that I'm going to share with you now.

Notice that God gave the message from Haggai to two specific people: The governor of Judah and the high priest. These are my thoughts about this. I am, to use C.S. Lewis' term, a simple layman. I don't profess to understand all of the culture and circumstance back then, so please look over my faults and try to see my overall design in writing this. These two people, the governor and the high priest, were most certainly important people in that day and, by that fact, were probably the best suited to both communicate to the people and persuade the people. God was going right after the nerve center of the people in Judah, knowing that this would cause the most profound effect.

One of these men was the governor of Judah. By his title, we can infer that he lead Judah from a political standpoint and made many important decisions for the wellbeing of the region. The other man, the high priest, was the heartbeat of the spiritual aspect of the region. His position was naturally one of prominence and honor.

I don't think I am wrong in inferring this from the text: God desires to reach you in the same way he reached Judah. He wants you to open up your mind - your political side, if you will - and your heart - your spiritual fortress - to his call on your life. I believe that he wants to speak to you through these coming blog posts about the importance of putting God first and, by default, receiving everlasting joy.

Let's take this journey together, asking God to open up our hearts and minds to his calling on our lives. I ask you to pray this with me today: God, please open up my heart and mind to what you want to speak to me today. Your smallest word greater than anything we could obtain on our own. We ask you to reveal to us your heart and bring us to a place of longing for you beyond any passion we have previously experienced. Amen.

For the next post in this series, click here.