Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Consider Your Ways

Haggai 1:3-5 - Then the word of the LORD came by Haggai the prophet, saying, "Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?" Now therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts: "Consider your ways!" 

There are a lot of things in the Bible that have more than one meaning. While this scripture talks about building a physical structure like a temple or a church, I believe it's also speaking to us of our own hearts. Even in the midst of admonition, God has a promise if we choose to not stop up our ears and wait long enough for that promise to emerge in the message.

Israel had strayed from God, looking to their own worldly pleasures. God was using Haggai, a prophet, to speak to them and draw them back. He used the analogy of their own houses and the importance they had upon the people while the House of God lay in ruins. Our body as a child of God is to be His temple, His dwelling place. He does not necessarily reside in a building but resides in the hearts of those who receive Him as the Lord and Savior of their life.

Haggai was a minor prophet in that he gave only one brief prophetic word. But a powerful one just the same. Like the world in which we are living, we are doing what we want, paying less attention to God and more attention to ourselves. Our nation alone has been known to have more than any other. That's not all bad, but when we take it for granted... He is the One who created us and has given us all things. Verse six is quite a hard word to hear: "You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but do not have enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages, earns wages to put into a bag with holes." I think about what Jesus often said about His being the Living Water, the Bread of Life and not worrying about what we eat, drink or wear because He will provide.


Like in verse five above, God then goes on to repeat Himself, which is a sure sign of His desire for us to listen up: "Consider your ways!" Exclamation point, no less! There are three other instances where He tells the people to "consider." We are all to consider our ways. Consider what is truly important in our lives. Is it the "stuff" we have or our physical house, or is it our spiritual house? Where is your heart's desire? Luke 12:34 makes this point: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Ouch. Sadly, we can all be guilty of this.

I'll tell you, and I've said it many times before, there isn't a day when I'm not thinking on God, seeing Him at work, seeing His character in the beauty around me. But like Haggai has warned, Consider your ways! It's our heart He's most interested in and it's a heart that is thinking on Him He desires. I'm not saying just because I think about Him each day makes me totally submissive to Him.  I'm painfully aware that there are still changes He wishes to make within me. 

These changes all start with our hearts. Through Haggai, God said: "You looked for much, but indeed it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?" says the LORD of hosts. "Because of My house that is in ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house." I believe He's referring to our spiritual heart that lays in ruins while we take care of our physical house, our physical needs. Because of this we are likely to never be satisfied because God is all we need; My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Psalm 73:26  What a great promise. He is our provider in all things.

God will shake our lives until we "get it right." And because He is the One doing the shaking, it is His glory that will be seen. The LORD had Haggai tell the people to not fear, that He would be with them always, as He covenanted with them. That is what He tells us today. The covenant is there for the asking; when we enter into covenant with God, He WILL be with us always and there is no need to fear...keep that spiritual house in order and all will go well.  He further states that "in this place I will give peace."


Haggai--and God--shows us that before we choose to build His temple within our own hearts we are missing something. He tells us to consider from the day we choose to do this, from before we laid the first stone (gave our lives to Him), how things change in our lives; how we prosper spiritually after not having all we could have through Christ, how He blesses us. He then tell us:

Haggai 2:18-19 - "Consider from this day forward...the day the foundation was laid...consider it...and I will bless you."

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