Build the House of God
(Hag) 1:3-8

In the center of the faith of Israel people was the temple of God. They had faith that God was in the temple. During the New Testament period, the center of faith was moved to a church. So we should cherish it and build it beautifully.

1. The temple in ruin
Now always bigger and crowded churches are good. Church God praises is with love and passion toward God. According the Revelation, Ephesian church had lots of advantages related to theological tenets. However, it was scolded because of losing first love toward God. Israel people had built a beautiful temple but they were scattered and perished when they lost their love and faith toward God while the temple being crushed. Also, these scenes are shown in the church because people lose love toward God thereby forgetting to give thanks and be joyful. As a result, churches have troubles because of tensions and conflicts. We should restore the church of God by rejuvenating the first love toward God.

2. Reflecting our faith
God led Israel people to Jerusalem again and let them rebuild the temple through the king Cyrus. However they stopped building the temple when they faced obstacles and difficulties of their life and they focused on day-to-day lives. They put their first priority to their lives instead of God. So God sent Haggai to rebuke them to look back on their wrongdoing and faith. We should always reflect our life and correct something wrong right away by being based on the words of God. Once we repent our sins and away from them, God will forgive us and accept us as his children. We should recover the God-first faith and live as children of God.

3. Faith that builds the church
We should employ our passion for ourselves to reconstruct the temple of God. Rather than criticizing and blaming, we should act by ourselves to correct something wrong in church. How innovate the middle-aged catholic churches was due to our ancestor’s prayers and devotion to sacrifice their lives to build the temple of God righteously. Let us restore the passion of prayer, worship and service as well as spreading gospel. Let us make a church God praises and people are crowded. Let us sincerely love and serve our church.