Haggai 1:7-11 says...Bible reading week 26, day 1

Today's verses are Haggai 1:7-11, which read,

7 - Thus says the LORD of hosts, "Consider your ways!

8 - Go up to the mountains, bring wood and rebuild the temple, that I may be pleased with it and be glorified," says the LORD.

9 - You look for much, but behold, it comes to little; when you bring it home, I blow it away.  Why?" declares the LORD of hosts, "because of My house which lies desolate, while each of you runs to his own house.

10 - Therefore, because of you the sky has withheld its dew and the earth has withheld it produce.

11 - I called for a drought on the land, on the mountains, on the grain, on the new wine, on the oil, on what the ground produces, on men, on cattle, and on all the labor of your hands."

The Israelites are starting to migrate back from Babylon to Jerusalem.  The first task was to rebuild the temple and the spiritual structure of their nation.  It started but then it stopped.  They put down the tools to build the temple of God and started picking up the tools to build their own lives beyond what was needed.  They started to make their dwelling places extravagant while God's house was half built and falling into ruin.  God has something to say about this.

God gives a sermon here.  "Consider your ways!" He says.  That is what a sermon is.  It is a time to hear from God's word and to consider if we are living in accordance to it.  The voice of God through His written word gives us instruction and also proclaims the standard that we are to hold to.  Many times it is a standard that we have veered from.  So God says to the people of Israel and to us today to "consider our ways."  

In His sermon He goes straight to the application point.  They are to go to the mountains, cut wood, bring it down the mountain, and start again on completing the temple of God.  It is pretty straightforward.  "You have stopped so get going again.  The wood is there so you need to just get your body where the wood is and use it for My glory rather than your own glory."  Someone might say that they have wandered from God or they feel far from God.  What is the solution?  Get up and get back doing what God has told you to do.  Put some effort into coming back rather than just speaking about what you are feeling.

Instead of running to God's house we run to our own house like it says in verse 9.  We run to our own solutions rather than seek out God's solutions.  We seek the comfort of our things rather than the comfort that only God can give.  When we run from God, God is not passive in just watching us go but He is active to apply the consequences so that we have a decision to make, to run back to Him or to run to our temporal solutions of beautiful houses that will fall down someday.  God is in action through the consequences that we experience.

The Israelites would experience drought and low yields of crops and their cattle would suffer not having enough to feed upon.  They would be discouraged with the progress of their own hands because they don't have what is needed from God to replenish the land that they are on.  This is God is action in relationship to their nonresponse to His commands.  This drought is to get their attention to "consider their ways."  This physical effect felt is because of their spiritual condition with God.  The two are tied together.

You can't help but take it from the physical to the spiritual when you look at the state of the church in our country.  Is God's church in ruins here because we are spending so much time building up our own empires?  Is the spiritual state of the general church lying desolate because we have stopped going to the mountain to get the wood to do for His glory rather than just our own?  What spiritual disciplines have we abandoned and replaced with our own physical pleasures and then questioned why we are in the state we are in?  God is not passive but very active at this time with us experiencing what happens when the church abandon's His words for some new definitions that are less offensive to others but highly offensive to Him.  God's sermon to us is the same, "Consider our ways!"   Let us pray.

"Lord how we have abandoned the mission You have given us.  We have created new missions that leave no time for Your mission.  We have taken Your resources and used them solely on the temporal things of life that You said You would provide as we seek first Your kingdom.  May we see Your hand of blessing as we head back up the mountain to gather resources for Your work rather than our own.  Amen."

Pastor Adam