Devotion

'The right time'

It’s awful when you get the time wrong. Missing a meeting, a party, a flight.

It’s equally important to get the time right. There’s no point, for example , in waiting for a bus which has already left. 

But imagine getting the time wrong, not just for little things like that, but for your lifetime: living one’s whole life prioritising one thing, when actually the purpose of that lifetime was something else entirely. It is something which is very possible to do and many, many people have done it. 

In the book of Haggai, God sees his people standing on the edge of the rest of their lives and getting the time wrong. They are on the verge of wasting their lives on their dreams and, in love, he intervenes to stop it. Through Haggai, God gives us a window to see what time it is and what our lifetimes are for. 

The people had returned from exile - but felt they didn’t have the time or means to rebuild the temple - however their actions showed that they did have the time and means to build the other things they wanted. 

This is what the LORD almighty says: ‘These people say, “the time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house”’. (Hag 1:2)

One can imagine God’s people walking through the city, looking up at the ruins of the old Temple and thinking ‘It’s on the to-do list! Not today though.’

When Jesus then speaks of himself as the temple in John 2, he’s talking about his death and resurrection, which enabled God to be with us and us to be with him forever.

As Christians, we get to build the house that is already built. This is the image Paul gives in Ephesians. By virtue of Christ’s death, ‘In him [Christ], the whole building [of God’s people] is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling by which God lives by his Spirit’ (2:21-22). 

Jesus’ death transforms us into his temple. In a beautiful act of grace, we get to be the ‘temple’ with him, bringing delight and honour to God! God is building a people, using his people to do it and that is what this time is for. 

We prayerfully consider this question for ourselves: ‘What is this lifetime for?’ and we strive to make ours for rejoicing in being God’s people and striving to build God’s people. 

Will Wallace

Principal