Consider your ways
Now therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts: “Consider your ways!” Haggai 1:5
I believe that the Lord is calling us to do the same today. To consider our ways. Not anyone else’s, but our own.
We’ve strayed so far away as individuals, as families, as a church body, and as a nation. We are supposed to be set apart and yet we blend right in with this world. If we call ourselves Christians, we must make sure that we are truly following the model of Jesus and obeying His commands. What does that look like to you?
It’s easy to want to build our own lives, and on and around temporary things and pleasures of this life. There is nothing wrong with these things but hopefully it goes deeper than that, for one day all these things will pass away and then what will be left? We are to build our hopes on things eternal.
Have we forgotten from Whom every good and perfect gift and talent comes from and that everything that we do should be for His use and accordingly? It seems that we’ve forgotten that this life and the things in this life are temporary because we work real hard to get and keep them. The next life is eternal and everything that we do here in this life, will be reflected there.
In the book of Haggai, God’s people did not do what God told them to do and they began to suffer for it. We will too! They waited 18 years to be exact. We might think that’s absurd or that the Israelites wandered for 40 years before taking the land, but a lot of us have spent our whole lives with good intentions. Good intentions and almost doesn’t count. We tend to think that God forgets or doesn’t take notice of certain things, especially when there seems to be no consequence. To everything there is a season and for each action, a harvest. Things always catch up and we reap what we sow. God is a loving and forgiving God, which is exactly why He told them to consider their ways. He wanted them to stop the madness. Just like those in Haggai, we may see temporary fruits of hard work but eventually, anything not built on the rock will pass away. It’s not a matter of if, but when. They were losing it all and it seems didn’t even know it.
Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.
Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways. Haggai 1:6-7
For unless GOD BUILDS, we just labor in vain who do build. That’s a fact. Every word of God is truth and if not now, eventually we will see it. It’s just like scripture says that every knee is going to bow and every tongue is going to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. If not now, then. It’s the ‘first and last’ system that the Bible talks about. Those who are first now, will be last then. We are to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, to please and obey His commands, and in due time, He will lift us up. Are we constantly building on what we want and buying into the ways of the world but yet still losing it all?
"Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails" is a verse from the Bible, Proverbs 19:21.
Job strove to please God, but he also suffered in the here and now. We all fail from time to time and we all face trials. This is what he said:
“FOR I KNOW that my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth.”Job 19:25
HE KNEW that He served a living and powerful God and Savior that God would indeed redeem him, if not now, later. Job had lots of nice things and things aren’t bad. It was what was inside of Job that sustained Him; God and His faith in God. We may live in a troubled and fallen world that’s upside down and inside out, BUT AT LAST, in the end, we know that God gets the final say. Though we may suffer now for doing good, we will be rewarded then. Too many times we want what we want right now and for various reasons.
We must have this same attitude and apply these same principles. God was talking to His very own people when telling them to consider their ways. He wasn’t talking to a bunch of wicked outcasts, but how wicked is it for us to claim to know Him and yet ignore His commands? How wicked is it to think we can get around to it later while making sure that ever other area of our lives are going well? When we leave God out, eventually nothing goes well and it all will fall apart. Eventually….
Is everything going okay and are we living our own lives while we ignore the voice of God, fail to follow His orders, and heed His commands?
For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, while it is said:
“Today, if you will hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.Hebrew’s 3:14-18
If we have become partakers of Christ, then why aren’t we following Him? He doesn’t say that we can just do what we want to but we must hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end. We can’t forget or begin to do things our own way and expect to please or live with God in the end. Only those who endure till the end are saved. Those who don’t give up but keep fighting the good fight of faith, even when they fall. We must live and aim to please God always. He said that IF WE will hear His voice and harden not our hearts as we did in our rebellious stage, then we can enter into His rest. The people in Haggai didn’t have any rest and neither did those in the wilderness. We have to come out of our temporary right now mindsets.
We are building a lot but gaining very little ground. We must stand on His Word and do His Will and not lose our footing. We work hard to build our own lives and fill our own pocketbooks but do they just have holes in them? We are never truly full until we are fully serving and following God. Nothing else, though things aren’t bad in themselves, can please us like knowing Christ can. The ones that didn’t obey, didn’t get to enter into the promise land or receive the promise. The promise is for those who believe and ultimately do in faith what God has called them to and ask them to do. He said that not everyone is gonna enter in and not just because they called Him Lord, but to those who do His will and follow Him. We must follow through. A lot of the Israelites didn’t enter in because they didn’t follow through but they simply could not enter because of their unrest and unbelief. Never expect to get to a place of rest where you refuse to trust and believe.
God had given them chance after chance for 40 years and only 2 believed out of many! You can beat the odds. God was given the people in Haggai another chance, possibly their last chance, to do what He told them 18 years prior. Maybe we are not advancing and still where we started because we never did step one, so God didn’t bless or give step two. He blesses obedience. We must not just consider our ways but change them.
God was calling the people in Haggai’s day back to His original command after 18 years. He is calling us back today to where we first began and why! I think we’ve forgotten. They weren’t still hung up on step one, they never began. Many of us begin but never finish. We aren’t to despise the day of small beginnings because every great thing starts small, just like when Nehemiah set out to rebuild the wall. The word tells us that BETTER is the end of a thing than the beginning. God wants us to finish and He wants to complete what He began in you and I, but we must cooperate with His plan and do our part to build on that!
They ignored the command altogether to build a house for God. But they sure were busy building their own and didn’t have time for God. Listen, if you don’t prioritize and make it a top priority to spend time with God and prioritize Him first, then you got it all wrong! If you’re too busy, you’re simply too busy. He will make a way or He wouldn’t have commanded it. You must look for the time and book it. Commit.
Solomon was to build the temple that his father so greatly wanted to build for God to honor Him. We understand now that God doesn’t live in a handmade temples and we are to build our lives around Him and on His truths. David didn’t understand why he was living in a nice house of the greatest and finest wood, while God didn’t have a home to live in. God honored his request by allowing his son to build this great temple. Solomon built the temple but his priorities and full heart were not always in the right place or order. We eventually see that the other things had his heart and anything that has your heart before God will become your god.
Solomon built his home greater than God’s home and had a priority and heart issues. Eventually it got the best of him. It always catches up. He seemed to have all the finest, just in the end to question what was it all for (see Ecclesiastes). We continue to build our lives but is it for what we want or what He wants? Pretty soon if we don’t prioritize, our lives will be in shambles and we’ll wonder how we got here or how it got to this like these people did. It was one neglect at a time. Then our lights will soon begin to dim until they go out. All because we did not prioritize God first and obey Him. We didn’t keep Him first and center and we began to build around things that did not matter. We got so high, we had a lot to lose. Did we take time to sacrifice for the greater? Do we? Are we building our lives on the solid Rock of Truth or on the shifting sand of temporary things? One Stands and one will fall, eventually.
The world is constantly changing and what’s new today will be obsolete tomorrow, but God never will. You can grow!
“Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in his wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim In the light of his glory and grace.”
“Turn your eyes upon Jesus” lyrics
God had enough! They took time for themselves but never for God. They were too busy it seemed and one day they’d get around to it. It was now or never. We must decide. He was no doubt tired of seeing the madness, them working hard to become more and more empty and unfulfilled, yet still striving harder and harder to build and grow but simply going nowhere!
They did not completely forget, but they surely didn’t obey or keep it at the forefront of their minds. We must! Almost doesn’t count and one day may never come. They had time to live in their expensive homes while the Lord’s house was not considered and ruined, so He told him to Consider their ways. To give careful thought to what was going on and to see and look around at what they had become. What’s first and foremost in your life? That’s what has become you and of you and I!
Here’s the deal. They were hard, hard workers. God‘s looking for doers but those who are willing to do His will and set theirs aside. When we seek first His Kingdom, He gives us everything else we need. Our wants won’t hurt us near as bad as having no relationship with our Creator! We are not here to just exist. He’d clearly rather and said so for us be hot or cold (one or the other!) rather than lukewarm, or He’d just spew us right out of his mouth.
We don’t need to limp between two gods and call ourselves Christians. We either need to be like the world or God, we can’t claim both and prosper. In our out! One day it’ll be decided for us. We can’t serve two ideals, for we will hate one and love the other. God is not an ideal or too idea, but He is God and to be worshipped as so! We are servants of the Most High God and created by and for Him. So, if we’re going to work, we might as well be all in. But, at the same time, if we’re going work for God, we can’t slack or use as an excuse that we have too much when he called us to put him first. There are no question marks there and no commas. No buts. No excuses. All in or all out.
They were planting much alright but not for Him, so therefore they were harvesting little. They love to eat and they did, but they never seem to have enough. They earned wages all right but they just put them in a bag with holes in them and it all seemed to disappear. We are managers and stewards of what we’ve been given and we can abuse and neglect. Just look at the parables of the talents. God tells us at one point that we do we rob him by witholding our tithes and offerings. What do we have and have we taken inventory of our lives and taken into consideration the by-products of what we’ve become or worked for and why? What or who are you serving? In other words, what has your heart and causes you to do what you do, and why!!! That is your truest why, no matter what you say. We can talk about it all day long, It is WHAT YOU DO. The proof is in the pudding. It all belongs to Him anyway. We are just stewardess and will all give account. We don’t get to take it with us but will be for sure rewarded or punished accordingly to how we did or didn’t use and why. He knows the intent of our hearts.
I think about the garden that I have now and some of the plants are so small and almost unseen. We have to water things in our lives if we want them to grow and we’re often watering in one area while we neglecting the others. God is the giver of all of these good gifts and our talents too. We must give and do all that we do as unto God and for His glory, not our own. The plants that don’t get watered will not grow and the garden that don’t get worked will not survive. Stop hindering your growth and putting first the things of this world. Jesus came to turn the world upside down and everything that Jesus said was upside down from the world’s point of view. Why are we still living like the world? Why are we still looking for the harvest when we are desperately trying to get it in the wrong way? It is blowing away. Maybe it is in ruins because we left his house in ruins and built our own lives and our sin and disobedience brings lack and disaster!!
So God tells them again to consider their ways consider as He is telling us. Yes, work. Yes, do for your family but don’t forget the family of God and don’t forget to work corporately and united the together. It starts in an individuals heart. It is me. It is you. It has become a home, churches, Schools and nations, that has fallen apart. Because individuals have strayed. We can’t look and blame and point fingers at what our brothers and sisters do, but it’s us individually, where it begins. Look at your situation, look around, look inside and ASK GOD to examine your heart and to give you the wisdom to know just what to do. What are you doing that he asked you to do that You never did ??? Go back to that!!! Simple as that. Retrace, step back and look and step up to take that step.
Then he orders them to go up to the hill country and bring lumber to rebuild his house, so that he may be pleased with them and it. They look for harvest, but it came to little and we don’t have to wonder why we must repent. “It is me, it is me” (heart cry, posture and attitude). Until I cry out it is me, I can’t fix it. I can’t open up to Him.
It is me - that’s why my situation is what it is. I have to consider my own before I can consider anyone else. I must consider God’s command before I consider my own because he has always considered me. It may be others that caused conflict but what have I allowed or not done and so participated in. I can’t change anyone but me, and my influence. In order for God to work in me, I must allow Him in.
Sometimes life problems are the source of others decisions or pain that they’ve put off on us and we did nothing wrong. God knows all about it and He considers it. He knows how to right every wrong and set it straight if we will just trust, obey, keep trusting Him when nothing seems to change or seems to go unnoticed and if we will cooperate with Him.
Don’t just consider it but pray and repent. Then act on it, and go up and do the very thing that God has told you to do from the beginning. Begin to your build your life on the firm foundation again. Until we give ourselves fully over to God, we cannot expect to live fully in the presence and blessings of God. Amen!
Why do we want to do very little for Him and expect so much in return, and then get mad at God when we haven’t given and surrendered all? He told us what to do. To love Him with everything in us and to follow His commands. Sometimes we do and things don’t turn out the way we think they should or thought they would, but God's love and plans never fail. We must do it anyway.
If it matters to Him, it should matter to me and you. It must not just hurt my heart if it hurts His, but move my heart to follow and obey Him because I trust that He is good and He is Lord over my life. What lords over and In you?
“Lord may Your word move us to action because it outweighs what we think we want, and we know the risk !!! Not only because we fear you but because we love You. Amen.”
WHAT HAS THIS THING - BECOME IN AND TO YOU?
You just have to DECIDE! MAKE a decision one day to do it. Daily choose to follow through for He is with you and will guide you, day by day, step by step. Let Him in and He will not fail you. Don’t worry bout tomorrow. Plan for it but be present today!
