Ezra 3:1-13
3:1 Jeshua and Zerubbabel and their cohorts began to restore worship. We sometimes find ourselves at a point in life where it is time to build, or even rebuild. Faith is steadily grown after we make a commitment to God, to the righteous lifestyle He has taught us to construct. The people of Judah had returned home but it was not the land but God that housed them. Any place we are in, emotional, figurative, or literal is a space of desolation if it is without our relationship with God. It was time for Judah to build their home and they began with the restoration of worship.
Worship is an imperative element of our relationship with God. The act at once celebrates and appreciates Him. It reiterates His goodness and expresses awe and gratitude.
3:2-7 Every healthy relationship is mutual. God had already provided so much for Judah. Finally, they began to offer again to Him. Corruption and idolatry turned them away from God, from offering themselves as hosts of His temple and agents of His righteousness. Though animal sacrifice is now defunct, Isaiah 1:11, the people of Judah reinstated a practice which restored the reciprocal nature of their covenant with God. By giving and offering their best, they trusted Him with it. They expressed that He was deserving of it.
In our own generation, offering to God looks different but the meaning of the practice is the same. Our patience and generosity is an offering to God; our willingness to do and be better is an offering to God; our time and focused attention is an offering to God. When we sacrifice our self-focused activities and donate our precious time to learning His word, helping His children, worshiping Him, we make offerings to God.
3:8-10 With their priorities in place, that is: with their faith above everything else, the restoration of the temple began. In the New Testament, we learn to we host the temple of God within us, 1 Corinthians 6:19. We truly begin construction once we've cleared the land, our hearts, through worship and obedience. Once we have laid the appropriate foundation and on the right ground, Luke 8:8, God begins to build something extraordinary within us.
3:11 As the work progressed, they praised God. As we develop and evolve in steadfast faith and righteous character, the praise of God cements our work. Praise keeps us adhered to Him, for it is in an open and raw state that we are closest to God. They praised God for His enduring mercy and rightly so, He had pulled them up out of a grave of immorality and death and into a new season. He gave them a new chance, a new life, a new hope... one they had not earned or deserved. And God does it again, and again, and again.
3:12-13 The young people were filled with joy. The older ones remembered the entire, bittersweet journey and it caused mixed emotions. They had gone so far from God and He had traveled so far to get them back. Staring at the new foundation, they could not help but to remember the former and how it was wasted. Neglected. Rejected. Opposed. Discarded.
The lesson, the joy and pain of the journey was starkly apparent to them. So rarely do people understand the entire scope, the whole picture. The elders of Judah saw the senselessness of idolatry, selfishness, and corruption. They understood that while peace was freely given, it was not arduously maintained and therefore the kingdom crumbled.
Maintain the blessings; be a conscientious student of God; arduous work to uphold justice; express compassion; cherish the wisdom and discipline of God, be obedient to it. Your kingdom will never crumble.
