Work for What Lasts

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Scripture: Haggai 1:5-6 (ESV)

5 Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 6 You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.

 

Meditation:

            Today’s scripture is one of several in the Hebrew Scriptures which admonish us to be careful about how we spend our time and money. We humans tend to live our lives without reference to God at all. When we do live that way we become self-centered and fail to notice that our lives are not making any progress at all. Our lives become stagnant pools in which nothing useful will grow.

            Each of these passages is followed by an admonition to give to the Lord and to our neighbor. This is a basic spiritual law. Acquisition without giving results in stagnation of our souls. Without giving to our neighbors all of our efforts to get more result in a deep lack of fulfillment in our hearts and minds.

            God would have us free ourselves from our selfishness by giving freely to the poor and disenfranchised. We need to seek those at the margins of our society and find ways to bring them into the mainstream of society. Our giving of ourselves needs to be inclusive of as many people as possible. Even those we may consider unworthy for whatever reason.

            We should seek to imitate God’s own giving on the cross. Holding nothing back from us not even his only son Jesus. We can never out give God, but we can certainly try to be as generous as possible. And when we are we can look forward to some kind of heavenly blessing. God may not give us a million dollars but our reward in heaven will be increased. That is never a bad thing!

 

Prayer

Lord, we pray that the Holy Spirit inspires us to become signs of the reign of God, anticipating God's heavenly glory through the love, compassion, kindness, truth, goodness, and joy we share with one another. May our relationships with friends, neighbors, and enemies be filled with those signs of the reign of God. Amen.

--Prayer From Sojourners.

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