Day 279 - Let Your Hands Be Strong

Daily Reading:  Zechariah 7-10

Ask all the people of the land and the priests, When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted?  7:5

Footnote 7:5-7:  The Israelites had lost their sincere desire for a loving relationship with God.  Zechariah told them that they had been fasting without a proper attitude of repentance or worship.  They fasted and mourned during their exile with no thought of God or their sins that had caused the exile in the first place.  When you go to church, pray, or have fellowship with other believers, are you doing these from habit or for what you get out of it?  God says that an attitude of worship without a sincere desire to know and love him will lead to ruin.

This is what the Lord Almighty says:  You who now hear these words spoken by the prophets who were there when the foundation was laid for the house of the Lord Almighty, let your hands be strong so that the temple may be built.  8:9

Footnote:  God had to give the temple workers a little push to get them moving.  They had heard the prophets' words of encouragement; at this time they needed to stop just listening and get to work.  We need to listen to what God says, but after he has made our course of action plain, we need to "be strong" and do what he wants.

Ask the Lord for rain in the springtime;

it is the Lord who makes the storm clouds.

He gives showers of rain to men,

and plants of the field to everyone.

The idols speak deceit,

diviners see visions that lie;

they tell dreams that are false,

they give comfort in vain.

Therefore the people wander like sheep

oppressed for lack of a shepherd.  10:1-2

Footnote:  We often create idols of money, power, fame, or success, and then we expect them to give us happiness and security.  But these idols can't supply what we need any more than a stone image can make it rain.  How foolish it is to trust in idols.  Instead, trust God's promises for your future.

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All footnotes taken from the Life Application Study Bible, NIV