After the outburst of excitement and determination that brought back almost forty thousand exiles back to Jerusalem to rebuild the ruined Temple, resistance and the temptation of an easy life mean that 18 years are allowed to pass without a single brick being laid. Then, as Ezra 5 records, two prophets – Haggai and Zechariah – call the people back to action and in their response we can trace three elements of how passion for the Lord can be recovered:
- The means of recovering our passion
- The proof that we have recovered our passion
- The results of recovering our passion