In the book of Haggai, God told His people to rebuild His temple. He put enthusiasm into the hearts of two people to make this happen.  One was Zerubbabel, the leader of Judah and the other was Jeshua, the high priest. Then God told them just as He had told Joshua (leader of Israel as they fought to take the Promised Land) to be strong and not afraid because God was with them.

Today, we can still have that same peace when we take on new challenges.

Haggai 1:

⁷ “This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Look at what’s happening to you! ⁸ Now go up into the hills, bring down timber, and rebuild my house. Then I will take pleasure in it and be honored, says the Lord. ⁹ You hoped for rich harvests, but they were poor. And when you brought your harvest home, I blew it away. Why? Because my house lies in ruins, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, while all of you are busy building your own fine houses.¹⁰ It’s because of you that the heavens withhold the dew and the earth produces no crops. ¹¹ I have called for a drought on your fields and hills—a drought to wither the grain and grapes and olive trees and all your other crops, a drought to starve you and your livestock and to ruin everything you have worked so hard to get.”

¹² Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the whole remnant of God’s people began to obey the message from the Lord their God. When they heard the words of the prophet Haggai, whom the Lord their God had sent, the people feared the Lord. ¹³ Then Haggai, the Lord’s messenger, gave the people this message from the Lord: “I am with you, says the Lord!”

¹⁴ So the Lord sparked the enthusiasm of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the enthusiasm of Jeshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the enthusiasm of the whole remnant of God’s people. They began to work on the house of their God, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, ¹⁵ on September 21 of the second year of King Darius’s reign.

Haggai 2:

1Then on October 17 of that same year, the Lord sent another message through the prophet Haggai. ² “Say this to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Jeshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of God’s people there in the land: ³ ‘Does anyone remember this house—this Temple—in its former splendor? How, in comparison, does it look to you now? It must seem like nothing at all! ⁴ But now the Lord says: Be strong, Zerubbabel. Be strong, Jeshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people still left in the land. And now get to work, for I am with you, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. ⁵ My Spirit remains among you, just as I promised when you came out of Egypt. So do not be afraid.’

God knows the details of every day of your life that you will live on this earth because He made you. But with that knowing He has powerful, unfailing love for you.

Psalm 139:

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
    and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
    Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
¹⁵ You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
    as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
¹⁶ You saw me before I was born.
    Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
    before a single day had passed.

God knows all the details of our lives. David wrote about this in Psalm 139.

Psalm 139:

In tough times when you’re not sure what tomorrow will bring, put all you got, all your trust in God.

Habakkuk 3:

I trembled inside when I heard this;
    my lips quivered with fear.
My legs gave way beneath me,
    and I shook in terror.
I will wait quietly for the coming day
    when disaster will strike the people who invade us.
¹⁷ Even though the fig trees have no blossoms,
    and there are no grapes on the vines;
even though the olive crop fails,
    and the fields lie empty and barren;
even though the flocks die in the fields,
    and the cattle barns are empty,
¹⁸ yet I will rejoice in the Lord!
    I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!
¹⁹ The Sovereign Lord is my strength!
    He makes me as surefooted as a deer,
    able to tread upon the heights

Today I praise God before these future events from the book of Revelation occur. I use verse 7:12.

Revelation 7:

⁹ After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes and held palm branches in their hands. ¹⁰ And they were shouting with a great roar,

¹¹ And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living beings. And they fell before the throne with their faces to the ground and worshiped God. ¹² They sang,

God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good.  I knew a preacher that said that every time he stood in front of his audience. There is a Christian song our church sings ever so often. Part of the chorus goes, “You are good, good!” (Referring to God)

Saying,  “God is good.” annoys me sometimes because when I go through hard times I ask myself, “Where is God?” and “Why hasn’t He answered my prayers yet?” and it gets hard to believe that He is good.

But today, I pull from two Bible verses I found in my One Year Bible reading. So, now, I am ‘specifically’ convinced that God is  good. And even though it may be hard to do, when I am in the middle of tough times, I’m going to say, God is good. Yes, even when my circumstance is hard, I can humbly muster up the faith to say three powerful words ~ God is good!

God is good…He is the God of gods…He is the Lord of lords…His mercy toward us is powerful and lasts forever.

Psalm 136 has great verses in it to memorize. All of it honors God and is good but I could memorize specific verses that are encouraging to me personally.

Psalm 136:

1 Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!
For His mercy endures forever.
² Oh, give thanks to the God of gods!
For His mercy endures forever.
³ Oh, give thanks to the Lord of lords!
For His mercy endures forever:

4 To Him who alone does great wonders,
For His mercy endures forever;
⁵ To Him who by wisdom made the heavens,
For His mercy endures forever;
⁶ To Him who laid out the earth above the waters,
For His mercy endures forever;
⁷ To Him who made great lights,
For His mercy endures forever—
⁸ The sun to rule by day,
For His mercy endures forever;
⁹ The moon and stars to rule by night,
For His mercy endures forever.

There are many people in this world today whose hearts have been broken and whose dreams have been shattered. So they build up bitterness and harden their hearts. They feel sorry for themselves and may refuse to accept that they do wrong or sin. Instead they blame it all on the person who hurt them and make excuses for their sin. Some live their whole life like this. This a sad life built on the foundation of bitterness and refusal to forgive the person who greatly hurt them. Unforgiveness and bitterness can destroy and stop a life from being fulfilled and having peace. And keep the person from growing spiritually with God and in relationships with others.

The love of God is so powerful that it is unfailing and God has mercy that lasts forever. If the hurt person truly gives up all their thoughts that were invested in how they were hurt, God can heal them with a miracle! The hurt person can CHOOSE a miracle that will change their lives. Then God can take their tragedy and turn it into a miracle that others can also choose to accept into their lives. It is the chosen miracle of letting go of bitterness continually until God’s love rules supreme in the individual’s life and then amazing peace, powerful love and attention-getting joy shines through their life! And they become a walking example of how powerful the love of God is.

This miracle takes effort. Time and time again the individual must take charge of their thoughts and change them into positive words found in the Bible like “I am more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus. I submit to God resist the devil. I am hidden in Christ. I take every thought captive!” These are all Bible verses and they are powerful when continuously spoken out loud. God’s Word can be trusted to greatly change lives!

Jesus, like King David, was born in Bethlehem. David was in the ‘human’ lineage of Jesus.  A tiny book found in the Old Testament of the Bible named Micah proclaimed this prophecy hundreds of years before it was written about in the book of Luke that is in the New Testament.

Micah 5:

^[a]But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,
    are only a small village among all the people of Judah.
Yet a ruler of Israel,
    whose origins are in the distant past,
    will come from you on my behalf.
³ The people of Israel will be abandoned to their enemies
    until the woman in labor gives birth.
Then at last his fellow countrymen
    will return from exile to their own land.
⁴ And he will stand to lead his flock with the Lord’s strength,
    in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
Then his people will live there undisturbed,
    for he will be highly honored around the world.

Ever been in a situation where you thought you were going to die? What did you do? Many times, people cry out to God then.

Jonah was was a reluctant prophet in the Old Testament. God told him to tell the people of Nineveh the bad news that judgment was coming against them. Jonah didn’t want to so he tried to run from God by leaving on a ship. He ended up in the sea and swallowed by a large fish. There, from his deep dark prison, He cried out to God and God answered him.

Jonah 2:

1Then Jonah prayed to the Lord His God from inside the fish. ² He said,

¹⁰ Then the Lord ordered the fish to spit Jonah out onto the beach.

Jonah 3:

1Then the Lord spoke to Jonah a second time: ² “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh, and deliver the message I have given you.”

³ This time Jonah obeyed the Lord’s command and went to Nineveh, a city so large that it took three days to see it all.^{[c] 4} On the day Jonah entered the city, he shouted to the crowds: “Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!” ⁵ The people of Nineveh believed God’s message, and from the greatest to the least, they declared a fast and put on burlap to show their sorrow.