A WORD FOR TODAY 26 SEPTEMBER 2019

A WORD FOR TODAY

BLESSINGS COME WITH BUILDING FOR GOD

The first reading of today highlights the importance of building for God. The temple of the Lord was in ruins, but the people were living well in their individual homes. The Lord spoke to the Zerubbbabel the governor and Joshua the priest through the prophet Hagai and they were encouraged to return and finish the work of rebuilding the Lord's temple.

The people neglected God's work and made themselves priority above God their creator and that cost them much, because they did not make much progress when God has not taken his proper place in their lives. They left God's house and focused their energy on beautifying their own homes and it came at a cost, because they lost a lot of blessings for neglecting the Lord's house.

We cannot expect to make progress in life, be productive and fruitful when we do not sincerely and honestly honour God and give Him his rightful place in our lives. Yes we have a role to play in building God's house in this world. We must make contributions by cash or talent to see that our people have a good place of worship where they will come to encounter God and be blessed, but more importantly we have a role to help rebuild God's temple in our hearts which is in ruins as a result of sin.

We must build goodness, love, peace, generousity, kindness, sincerity, honesty, justice, equity, gentleness, forgiveness, trust in God e.t.c in our lives and in the lives of those we encounter on a daily basis. Our responsibility will always be to place God first before anyother thing, for when God is made number one in our lives, we will definitely be blessed in abundance. We must make contributions to help build for God always, because we will receive divine blessings from Him. Do not let your desire and quest to be rich in the material sense, make you forget about being rich in the spiritual sense which must come as a priority above everything else. God must come first before anyother thing in our life.

We must strive everyday to be like Hagai who encouraged the people to rebuild God's temple. We must encourage those who are not doing well to start to do well and we must always be ready to help those who have missed their way and misplaced priority to return to the Lord and become a new people. God is the source of our blessings and fruitfulness and to neglect Him will be at our own peril. Therefore, seek Him first and His righteousness and everyother thing shall be added unto you (Matthew 6:33).

In the gospel reading, Herod became perplexed and troubled in conscience when he heard about what Jesus is doing, this was because of the evil he did against John the Baptist, He had no peace and joy disappeared from him. We must always work towards taking decisions and doing the things that will help us have peace and joy, but if we see that we have done evil that have destroyed God's temple in us, we should rise from where we have fallen, confess our sins before the Lord, make amends and restore our relationship with Him. It is only by doing this that we are going to have peace and joy restored in our life.

Good morning dearest one. Smile😊as you do your work and do have a wonderful day. May Jesus give you the grace to make God number one in your life so that you will receive blessings in abundance. Amen. *And may the Almighty God bless you: the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Meditation: Hagai 1:1-8/Psalm 149:1-6,9/Luke 9:7-9

You cannot expect to go too far on your journey, if you choose to walk alone without God.

(Thursday of the 25th week in the Ordinary Time, Year 1)