Filled with God’s Glory
Haggai 2:3-7
Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? … For thus says the LORD of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the LORD of hosts.
Haggai 2:3, 6-7
Do you look at the work of your hands and think it as nothing? How often do you end your day wishing what you accomplished didn’t look so drab, so ordinary?
Israel felt this pain of disappointment. When the returned exiles to Jerusalem began rebuilding God’s temple, they saw the works of their hands as nothing. What once stood grand, glorious and majestic in Solomon’s time could not be replicated by these ordinary men and women.
God saw their tears of frustration. And He spoke encouragement to their souls. He promised that in a little while, He would accomplish something extraordinary for the sake of His name.
We see the first part of God’s encouragement came wrapped in the package of patience. “In a little while,” God said. He gave no timeline, no rough estimate, no secret code for the people to decipher and figure out when this promise would reach its fulfillment.
God desired the trust of His people. He reminded them He was the God who brought them out of Egypt (and, more recently in this passage, out of Babylon). His word is truth. His promise given is a promise fulfilled. If God says so, it will be so.
Do you believe that? Do you believe the words of God are true? Do you believe the promises of God will one day reach their fulfillment? If your answer is yes, do you live out that belief?
For God rarely ever provides the specific “when” of His promises. Maybe one reason for this is to give us opportunity to sharpen our trust in Him.
The next aspect of God’s encouragement shows how every work of our hands will indeed look as nothing — until God fills it with glory.
The temple built by these exiles never looked as glorious as the temple Solomon built. But this new, less extravagant temple experienced the glory of God Himself walking among men.
Jesus Christ visited this temple.
Most Bible scholars believe the glory God promised in Haggai was a reference to Jesus Himself filling the temple with the glory of His presence. This glory was not built by human hands. But this promise of glory did come to pass because these men and women stepped out in purpose and obeyed God even when the results looked ordinary to their eyes.
We know this truth, but the people hearing this promise never saw this fulfillment. They heard the words of God and had to choose to believe in Him. And each and every person present during this word from the LORD died before God filled His house with the glory of Jesus.
What do we learn from this fact? The unfortunately difficult truth that we may never see how God brings glory to the work of our hands. But here’s the beauty we unearth that brings joy to our everyday: We can rest fully assured in knowing that whatever God asks us to do throughout our everyday, this is a task that brings Him glory. Otherwise He wouldn’t have asked it of us.
On the days when you look back at the works of your hands and only see the mundane, know your obedience brings God glory.
For God makes your obedience glorious. You do not. Your actions do not need the appearance of grandeur. If God has asked this of you, He will make it glorious. Your responsibility is simply to walk in obedience. No matter how mundane it looks this side of Heaven.
