How are You Building Up the Temple?

~~~ Haggai 1:1-8 ~~~ Psalm 149 ~~~ Luke 9:7-9 ~~~

 

Consider your ways!

Another translation says...Reflect on your experience!

 

God wants the people to build the temple,

but instead they have built their own houses and let themselves be distracted.

They have been giving their attention to all the wrong things....

eating, drinking, collecting their money.

 

All of their time spent has not brought them happiness

 or blessings from God.

They have found no pleasure even in their eating and drinking.

Their money brings them no return...nothing

is bringing them closer to the Lord.

 

God wants them to return to the work he commissioned them to do...

that of building up the temple where he can be glorified.

 

God tells the people they have lost sight of their task.

Once they return to the temple construction

 they will feel better about themselves.

They will know that they are completing what

God himself requested of them.

 

 

After killing John the Baptist,

Herod is haunted by what he is being told about Jesus.

 

John was the voice of wisdom, even for Herod.

Now he is restless and confused...he is more lost then ever before.

 

 “John I beheaded.
Who then is this about whom I hear such things?”

And he kept trying to see him.

Herod could not see who Jesus truly was:

his heart was closed to all new possibilities.

 

Everything leads back to the inner disposition of one's heart.

Where your heart is therein lies your treasure.

The people of the prophet Haggai have let their hearts

 loose sight of their calling.

 

They are mechanically focusing on the wrong things.

They are placing their attention on those things

that are not of God's design.

 

All that we say and do must be for the honor and glory of God.

Too often we fall short of that goal.

We get caught up in the importance of our own desires.

 

The time has come for us to examine our heart.

How do we spend most of our time?

 

Consider your ways!

 

God suggests we might want to step back

...take a fresh look at our heart.

When we are honest with ourselves

we may just discover how we too have been foolish.

 

Blessings come in examining

how we are to keep our heart connected

to the will of God.

Ask God to give you a new perspective...

a new viewpoint.