Carefully Consider Your Ways

Haggai 1:6-7 You have sown much and bring in little; you eat, but you have not enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe yourself, but there is none warm, and he that earns wages earns wages to up it in a bag of holes. The Lord of the Heavenly Armies says this: “Carefully consider your ways.”

In 508 B.C., God sent the prophet, Haggai, to challenge the people to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. The people had returned to their affairs and gradually became accustomed to worshiping among the ruins of the once great temple. The desire to rebuild died out, and they became content with remaining the secular occupants in an impoverished land.

Many good works have been intended but have yet to be done because some assume the proper time has not come. Sinners delay the concerns of their souls until it is too late.

Luke 12:33 Where your treasure is there will your heart be also.

Is misfortune God’s way of getting our attention? Adversities and trials can only come to a child of God for a purpose. Let those who have put off their return to God return with all their heart while there is time.

2 Chronicles 7:14 When my people humble themselves – the ones called by my name – and pray, seek me, and turn away from their evil practices, I will listen from heaven, pardon their sins, and restore their land.

Haggai 1:9 You turned away in pursuit of abundance but look at how little you found! What you did manage to bring home, I blew away! And why? Declares the Lord of the Heavenly Armies. It’s because of my house! It lies in ruins while each of you runs off to his own. That is why the heavens keep withholding dew from you, and the earth withholds her fruit. I sent a drought on the land, the mountains, your grain, your new wines, your oil, everything the ground produces, men, livestock, and everything you do!

It is vital to self-examine our spiritual state with our hearts. Sin is what we must answer for; obedience is what we must do. When God crosses our worldly affairs, and we meet with trouble and disappointment, we should look for the cause so that the work we have to do for God and our souls is not undone.

The good news is the Lord has success when by His grace, He stirs up our spirits to comply with it.
Those who have lost time need to redeem the time, and the longer we have lingered in foolishness, the more urgency we should make. God met them in the way of mercy. Those who work for Him have Him with them, and if He is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31) This should stir us to diligent action.

Haggai 1:14 Then the Lord revitalized the spirit of Shealtiel’s son Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, the spirit of Jehozadak’s son Joshua the high priest, and the spirit of all the rest of the people, so they came and began to work on the house of their God, the Lord of the Heavenly Armies.

Life is not complicated if you put God first.

©2023 Debora Gilley

Related Posts: