God Is With Us

Then Haggai, the messenger of the Lord, spoke to the people with the Lord's message, "I am with you, declares the Lord." (Haggai 1:13 ESV)

In a couple of weeks I will be preaching in Becker and the text for my sermon is Haggai, talking about the remnant's lost focus. This morning as I was reading the verse above jumped out at me. The promise that is contained in this verse is so wonderful - "I am with you, declares the Lord." With this final word of encouragement from God the people said we are all in, we will complete the task we were called to do.

These people gave up on the initial task because they lost their focus on God and started to focus on the dangers that were around them. I don't fault them we do the same thing today. We are affraid to stand up for what we believe as Christ-followers. We give in to the persecution we might face if we declare our commitment to Christ. We fail to follow through on the things God has called us to do. What we need to do is lean into our fears knowing that God is with us. Erwin McManus defines courage, not as the absences of fear but as the absence of self. This is what the remnant did, they let go of their own fears and turned to the promise that God gave them. Notice that He didn't say things would be easy, He simply said that He would be with them in any struggles or trials that may come along.

Do you have a God given task that you are struggling with because of outside pressures? As we take the focus off of us and put the focus back on God, knowing that he is with us, we can continue to allow God's purpose for our life to unfold before us.