Daily Devotions

Hag 1:4-11 4 Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste?
5 Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways.
6 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.
7 Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways.
8 Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord.
9 Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the Lord of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house.
10 Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit.
11 And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labour of the hands.
KJV
God’s desire was for the people to rebuild the Temple and then the city of Jerusalem, but the people had little interest in doing that. How would God get them to be less concerned with self and more concerned with Him and His work? The blessings of God upon the secular things began to be lessoned and removed. Soon they were sowing much and bringing in little. (Verse 6) A drought came upon the land to make things even harder. (Verse 11) Again, God was not angry because they had nice houses to live in, but because they paid no attention to His house, no attention to the things of the Lord. There are many things that demand our time and energy today and they are not wrong. It take time and money to have a home to live in, provide for the family and so on and God knows that, but God wants a portion of our time and our money as well and God does not want the leftovers, God wants the first fruits. Consider this morning how much time and energy you gave to the Lord and His work in 2016 and ask yourself if God was pleased with what you gave. If that answer is yes then praise God for it. But the vast majority of professing believers do nothing more for the Lord than go to church and most of them on an irregular basis. Few will be able to say that they faithfully tithed in 2016 and fewer still that they gave above and beyond a tithe. Do you want a prosperous 2017? Then we need to be giving to the Lord the first fruits and not the leftovers.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 3rd, 2017 at 7:24 am and is filed under Daily Devotions. You can skip to the end and leave a response.