Title: Me First? / Topic: Giving
Today’s Reading: Haggai 1; Haggai 2; Psalm 129; Luke 10
Scripture: Haggai 1:3-6
3 Then the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai: 4 "Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?" 5 Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways. 6 You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it."
Observation: The Lord is challenging his people to consider the results of their priorities in work and spending. They have put off building God's house and have built for themselves nice paneled homes. They have also been working hard to be successful. The Lord points out to them that even though they have been working hard, the fruitfulness of their labor has produced little. In the verses that follow these, God makes it clear that if they will give both their money and their labor to build the house of the Lord that their crops will flourish and they will have more abundance than they have been able to produce on their own. By putting themselves first they were actually cheating themselves of what they wanted.
Application: This same lesson is still true today. God must be our #1 priority. We must obey him in giving as well as everything else. If we do, we will receive maximum blessing from him. If we do not, we will have to continue to work very hard for very little. It seems like such an easy choice and yet so many people have such a hard time making it. I want to work with God adding his blessing to my efforts so that I will get the most for my labor. Working hard for so little is not my idea of fun!
Prayer: Help me to always keep you as my first priority Lord, not only in giving but in every area of my life. I want all the blessing you can pour out on me. I want so much that it spills over on everyone I am around and draws them to you.
This I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.
1 Comments:
Cynthia,
You are right. It is all about PRIORITIES. We show what is important to us, not by our words, but by the way we invest ourselves -- our time, our energy, our money. Unfortunately, the things of the Lord are not at the top of the list for most who call themselves disciples of Jesus. "Lord, help us get it right and to put You into the highest place in our priorities. Amen"
Michael
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