Ezra Chapter 3

Now those who returned had settled back in their own cities in Israel. But before the work on the temple rebuilding began, some essential things needed to be done. Did you spot them?

For me, this chapter speaks about the need to build our foundation of faith before we start to build the foundation of the physical building.

What are the foundations of our faith?

Zerubbabel & Jeshua first led the people to build an altar and offer burnt offerings to God according to the Law of Moses (verse 2-6) during the Feast of Tabernacles and other events or schedules.

Burnt offerings are made for the atonement of sin. But, to quote one of our Preachers who wrote in Manna, “Yet the burnt offering of the Old Testament could never remove sin. Instead, it was a “reminder of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins”.

The regular burnt offerings the people made served two purposes. One was to appeal to God to forgive them of their sins and the other was to serve as a constant reminder of their sins.

This is why it is so important to attend services regularly where we can come before God in constant prayer and reflection. And in repentance and resolution not to commit the same sins over and over again. Without doing this, it will be very difficult for us to even start doing any work for God.

It is important for us to know the Words of God so that we do what it tells us to do. Knowing and not doing is useless.

So it was for those who returned. It was only after they had made themselves right before God did they start the work on the foundations (verse 10).

Did we get our spiritual priorities right today? Something to reflect upon today.

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