Be strong ...

Haggai 1:1-2:23; 2 John 1-13; Proverbs 29:19-27

God calls His people – “Be strong” (Haggai 2:4). This call comes to the “governor”, “the high priest” and “all you people of the land” (Haggai 2:2). We need spiritual strength in government, in the Church and throughout the land. This strength is needed if we are to build upon the sure foundation of truth. The Lord’s work is to be built up. This can only be done when we stand for the truth in the face of “many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh” (2 John 7). John tells us that we must take care to ensure fruitfulness in the Lord’s work – “Watch out that you do not lose what you have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully” (2 John 8). The danger we must take care to avoid is described pictorially in Haggai 1:6 – “You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.” When we hear a message such as this, we must receive it with humility and not with pride – “A man’s pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honour” (Proverbs 29:23).
From my One Year Bible