Chapter two describes the progress and completion of the temple's foundation built by Zerubbabel, Joshua, and Haggai. Many built their ivory towers after knocking their castles of old into rubbish. What was meant for good to provide a better lifestyle ended up entrapping these people into the spiritual spiral stairway that locked them up in apathy, aloofness, and neglect. We see the Lord encourage the people of God to continue into the work of rebuilding the temple. God tells the people in the first nine verses that the glory of the new temple will outshine the glory of the old temple. Even though God compares the temple of the past to the temple of the future, God did not tell the people to kill the past, but to turn their eyes to the present. There is nothing wrong with remembering the past spiritual state. In fact, the same God that brought glory in the past brought glory to the present and the future. In many of our lives today, God is still at work in our today and tomorrow the same if not more than our past. The problem with honoring the past more than the future only occurs when the past is so idolized that a past glory became a god over the future glory. We make sacred cows out of a past and now inorganic experience when God wants to make a living temple out of an organic being. God's people struggle with this idoltry of the past too many times. In fact, the Israelites had gotten to the point of worshipping the past of the Nehustan (the brass serpent made by Moses) that King Hezekiah had to smash this brass serpent into pieces to refocus God's people to the glory of the now. How can you meet the needs of today with the blessings of yesterday? You can not.

In order for the new temple to be built, God had to perform a great shaking of his people. In order for newness to be built in your life, a great shaking of purity, passion, and priorities takes place where all that shakes will shake and all that remains will remain in order to sift and seperate the chaff from the wheat.

We clearly see in verses ten through nineteen how God reveals the old haphazard approach to God will not work. As yesterday's blessing can not minister to today's needs, yesterday's haphazard and sinful ways will not be acceptable to God in today's holy temple. Where God's people thought they got away with dirty foods and touching dead people, now the sacrifices had to be done God's way. A holy temple required a reverent heart and a contrite spirit for the presence of the Lord to dwell in. In Corinthians, the apostle paul stated that our body was the temple of the Holy Spirit, not a tower of power. Jesus stated in the Gospels that the temple will be destroyed but to rise up again in three days. Note that he did not use the word tower.

If you read the book of Ezra, we clearly see that the temple was finished and dedicated to the Lord. Here, God pronounced blessings and forced the people to clean up their act and consecrate themselves before Him. In order to remain the holy temple, we must dilligently maintain a state of maintenance and consecration in our lives for the temple of God to be a powerful place of impact where blessings and ministries flow. You see, temples are built for us to be on the foundations deeply firm in His ways. Towers are usually designed with a way to reach the top to overlook the surroundings. We are not supposed to be overlooking the surroundings. Even though it is important to know the environment around us, the firm foundation of the temple will suffice in our safety in God. "For thou O Lord are a shield for me, the glory and the lifter of my head".

Lord, right now in the name of Jesus. I repent for the ivory tower mentalities I built and enacted. I ask that you would forgive me and raise up in me a standard. A holy temple designed to usher forth Kingdom priorities and Great Commission mandates. Bring us to this point of being acceptable to you to enact your ways and not an 'official Christian agenda' from an ivory tower corporate church. In Jesus name I pray, AMEN!