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The
Time Has Come!
Quickly now: More than anything else, what gets in the way of our
serving the Lord as we ought? Is it our lack of ability? Our shortage of
opportunity? A deficiency in knowledge? It could be that what deters us
is what has kept many others from rendering service.
Consider what deterred the Lord’s people in the sixth century B.C. from
the task at hand, the completing of the Lord’s temple. Though they had
started the job some sixteen years before, the work had fallen off and
stopped. The mindset was, “The time has not come, the time that the
Lord’s house should be built” (Haggai 1:2). But why had they
stopped? What led them to think the time hadn’t come for building the
temple? We believe their thinking is summed up in the form of a question
by God: “Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled
houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?” (1:4). Apparently they had
prioritized their earthly aspirations above the Lord’s and were thus
placing more importance on their own business than His.
We have wondered: Is this the way we think? Is this
our disposition about things? “The time has not come...”?
How many intentionally delay their obedience to the gospel because of
such thinking? How many fail to approach their neighbor with God’s word?
How many spend more time reading “Good Housekeeping” or “Field and
Stream” than they do the Bible? How many spend more of their funds on
entertainment than the Lord’s work? How many find it possible to go to
work with the same symptoms of sickness that keep them from the
assembling with brethren?
ATTENTION, PLEASE: God and His work comes before ours! Nothing --
and we mean nothing -- is as important! How dare we allow the cares of
this life to keep us from carrying out our service to God.
“Thus says the Lord of Hosts: ‘Consider your ways!’” (Haggai
1:5,7). Such consideration is sorely needed today. If we’ve grown
lethargic in our work -- or just plain stopped -- let’s “consider our
ways,” get out of our materialistic rut, and get back to the building of
the Lord’s house today! The work is great!
--Mike Noble
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