Responses to opposition - paneled houses

No image today.
No picture.
Did you know that you can find any kind of picture of a "devil" that you want to?
You can find little ones, big ones, ones that look cute.
Purple ones, red, emojis.
Ones that do look purely evil.
Others that look fairly innocuous.
But then we know that he can assume any guise that he wants to. He can look any way that he wishes. He can use lots of tools to discourage us, to make us afraid, to hinder us and to steer us away from our walk with God.
By now, you'd think he would get the idea.
God's plans can't be stopped.
We believers can be stopped for a little while. If we are not bolstered and shielded by the Spirit. We can zoom down to the bottom of the roller coaster and sit there, all mopey-like.

Have you responded to the enemy's attacks like that?
I know I have done it before.
That's not the way we SHOULD respond, though, is it?
It's awfully tempting to just give up. To go back to our old way of life . . . over in Haggai, the prophet tells us that many of the Jewish people got distracted with building their own homes.

This is what the Lord Almighty says: “These people say, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house.’”3 Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: 4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?” (Haggai 1:2-4)

They needed shelter, right? Wasn't that part of taking good care of their families? Apparently they not only put up shelters, they put up fancy houses! "Paneled" in that time period meant something different than what we might think. Let's look at some verses together.
Solomon used "panels" in the sumptuous Temple he built, and in his own palace:

So he built the temple and finished it, and he paneled the temple with beams and boards of cedar. (I Kings 6:9)

Then he made a hall for the throne, the Hall of Judgment, where he might judge; and it was paneled with cedar from floor to ceiling. (I Kings 7:7)

So, I think we can safely say that they got distracted. The temple was not finished, and they built luxury homes and condominiums for themselves. (Obviously, there is nothing wrong with living in a nice home, but neglecting God's priorities to pursue our own is where the problem lies.)

Have you ever thought about all of the products on the market today, and how many of them promise to speed up things? Faster dinner, faster (or no need for) ironing clothes, faster cleaning and dusting, and the list goes on and on. You would think that the marketing people thought we were busy or something. (Grin)
Here's the interesting thing . . . you don't often see video games that say we can play them in no time flat. Big screen televisions don't promise that we'll spend less time watching. Golf clubs don't promise the fastest eighteen holes we've ever played . . . .
We want to save time on the things we find tedious.
Monotonous.
Boring.
Ready for the application? Got your bandaids at the ready?
Do we enjoy spending our personal time with God in the same way that we look forward to a good movie, or dinner with friends, or one of our hobbies?
Think about that for a heartbeat or two....
Are our lives so busy that we find ourselves looking for ways to cut corners? To squeeze Him into our tight schedule the way we do a microwave dinner? Has serving Him or having a daily quiet time with Him become tedious?
It's a question of priorities. We see the remnant that returned struggling with this same issue. Their priorities had slowly shifted. They began well -- in spite of starting from scratch, they had tackled one of their most important spiritual tasks -- they made sure they began "rightly" and put up the altar and made sacrifices. When the opposition came, the entire operation came to a standstill. Their enthusiasm waned. Over time, they paid more attention to their own personal needs than the needs of worshiping God in His temple.
I can just see them as they went to Omar's Emporium, the Home Depot of the day, and shopped for cedar paneling, luxurious rugs, and fancy furniture. . . .
Here's what the Lord thought of that:

Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 6 You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”7 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 8 Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the Lord.9 “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the Lord Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house.  (Haggai 1:5-9)

Haggai was telling the people just what the Lord told him to say; the building of the house of the Lord was much more than just the physical building. It was the focal point of the spiritual life of the people.
Now, what would Haggai be telling us, if he were speaking to us today?
We were probably pretty enthusiastic when we trusted Jesus for our salvation, right? Like the people when they established the altar. We were excited and started down the pathway. But what about now? Are we still building?
Have we gotten sidetracked? Distracted? Maybe discouraged?
Do we have time to look at the television or the internet, but no time for reading our Bible?
Do we find excuses to skip church, because someone has criticized or disappointed us?
Can we "get lost" in our hobbies, but only find a minute or two for devotions?
Well, pilgrim, you're not alone.
Many believers struggle with this.
They give up on their spiritual goals and go back to their old way of life.

If this is a picture of what we are going through, let's get on our knees and ask God to rekindle His excitement in our hearts. To set us on fire to glorify Him and make a difference in this world. To stop building our own "paneled houses" and get to work building for Him!