I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Zephaniah and Haggai.

Zephaniah prophesies against Jerusalem and Judah.  He condemns the religious leaders who claim to follow the Lord, but worship other gods as well.  He references Molech in particular.  Molech worship was known for its child sacrifices.  We have in our society today religious leaders who proclaim themselves Christians who support, some who even promote, the practice of abortion.  But Zephaniah mentions that their were those who claimed to follow god who worshiped other idolatrous gods besides Molech, and today we have leaders who claim to be Christians, do not support abortion but do encourage people to partake in other idolatrous practices.

However, central to Zephaniah’s prophecy is his call for people to gather together and repent of their sins.  We should seek the Lord and humbly follow His commands, gathering together with those who do likewise to pray.  God’s judgement is coming, but if we gather together with those who humbly do God’s will and repent of our sins, God will protect us.

Haggai gives a message about taking the next step.  We have a tendency to look at the things we know God wants us to do and think that we need to wait until we get our lives in order to do them.  Perhaps we think we need to wait to do God’s will until we have established ourselves economically.  “I can’t tithe until I get the rest of my budget in order.”  Haggai tells us that if we wait until our bills are in order to give resources to God’s projects, our finances will never be in order.  Indeed he tells us that the best way to get our finances in order is to start spending some of our money to do God’s will.