What are the priorities that drive you to behave and act the way you do? Is it your family? Is it your career? Is it following one man's "official Christian perspective" of what he thinks real Christians are? Is it the quest for the most toys in life? No matter what things shape our priorites and values, if Jesus is not at the top of the list being first and foremost. Something is wrong!!!

That is what had happened to God's chosen people approximately five hundred years before the birth of Jesus Christ. The Israelites had established priorities and chased the sun around and around while neglecting the temple that laid in ruins. We clearly see in the two Old Testament books Ezra and Haggai of two men's inspiration to rebuild the temple. Where Ezra's account concentrates more on the physical struggles of building the temple. Haggai deals with the interpersonal aspect of earthly priorities versus kingdom mandates.

Throughout this book, we see how the Israelites developed apathy towards kingdom princpiles and developed a preoccupation with materialistic treasures. Many Christians and churches today have developed this same apathetic mentality towards the kingdom of God and replaced their first love with the things of this world and twisted and distorted scriptures to fall in line with their fleshly thinking. Instead of letting the things of this world grow strangely dim in the eyes of his glory and power, the things of this world have gotten brighter while our spiritual perception has gotten dimmer due to the neglect and apathy in our lives.

As the Israelites used an political order to stop the building of the temple and wallowed in their apathy. American Christians have used the political order called the Democrats to justify the apathy and neglect towards the kingdom mandates. Instead of sowing seeds into the kingdom, we have held back the firstfruits to appease our flesh. Instead of praying for our country, we let the country deteriorate to enhance a "see I told you so" mentality. We let a poor work ethic take the place of true ingenuity and industriousness. We hoarded our blessings in the name of conspiracy theories and "Y2K" prevention and kept the hungry hungrier, the poor poorer, and the spirtually weak more weakened. As Haggai sounded the wake-up call to an apathetic body to rebuild a physical temple, I would like to sound the wake-up call to rebuild the Holy temple of God and to shrug off our neglect, apathy, and complacency in our own lives.

Click here for part two of "Ivory Towers or Holy Temples".