Let’s apply Haggai 2 to churches as well. God points out the trouble He caused them, but they didn’t turn from their ways.

In our area there have even been a couple of church fires this year. That could be God warning you to turn back, go His way.

The Lord encourages them to not look back at their former ways. The works of their own hands amounted to nothing. They worked and worked but it didn’t produce good fruit.

The Lord commands them to work. He promises that His Spirit will remain in their midst. He admonishes them or comforts them in saying, “Fear not.”

He gives a promise of glory for the house they are building, the temple of the Lord. The temple is the Body of Christ. Yes, our bodies are God’s temple, the full temple of the Lord is the Body of Christ, the whole Church. His Church is His Body, His temple. He wants it full of His glory, full of His goodness.

And He promises this glory will be greater than it was before and He promises peace.

There can only be good from obeying God. There can only be good from humbling ourselves and relying on God and His ways instead of our own ways.

God teaches His children how to have “all these things added unto us.” It’s seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness.

We can work and work to get “all these things” for ourselves, but God can say the word and they go away.

The only lasting peace, the only goodness, is in Christ. We have to submit our lives and certainly our churches to Him. He must have His way. Let Him have His way!

This chapter, and the book of Haggai, ends with God choosing Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel as His servant to be made like a signet ring. A signet ring is how you showed you had authority from above. You were sent in the king’s name and had his signet ring to prove it. God gives the governor of Judah His authority.

We don’t get to take God’s authority and wield it around. It must be given us and appointed to us for a purpose.

Zerubbabel, by the way, is in Jesus’ lineage.