Monthly Musing

                                                                  Consider your ways!
                                                   
                                                                    by James Baker                

                                                        (minister, mt airy church of Christ) 

​In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, saying, Thus said the Lord of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built.

Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying, Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your fine houses, and My house lie waste? Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways.
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 earns wages earn them to put it into a bag with holes.    Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways.  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.      Haggai 1.1-8
 
 Then said he unto them,  A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready.
And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused.
 And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused.
 And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.
So that servant went and told his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.

And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. And the lord said unto the servant, go’’’’’’ into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.   For I say unto you, none of those men which were invited shall taste of my supper.Luke 14.16-24
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.  Matt 6.33
 
With the readings of the scriptures, we see people have a very bad problem with staying faithful to the Lord. First, people have the tendency to let Gods work go lacking while they take care of personal business. That is what Haggai was saying.  The people were building up their own personal houses and making their lives very comfortable while the Lord's house was in shambles. They failed to take into consideration it was by God's grace they could take care of their personal business.
That is why the Lord told them that they need to consider their ways, and the same is true today,
we need to consider our ways as well.

I know we have jobs and need to work, I know we have families that need our attention, but we must serve the Lord too. We must find time and make room to do both; take care of our everyday normal activities and make time to serve the Lord.   I believe some people would call it multitasking.

The lesson we see from the book of Luke is about excuses.   We must remember that God has given man commandments and God does not want to hear man making excuses as to why he cannot obey. God expects his commandments to be carried out. When it comes to church attendance, people give excuses on why they can't.  When it comes to teaching a lesson or just doing anything else, people always have excuses. Moses made all kinds of excuses to the point of making the Lord angry.  Exodus 4.10-14.  The Lord don't want to hear excuses, He wants to see people step up and get the job done.
 
The next thing is putting the Lord first in our lives. Anything that we do, we need to consider how to do it and serve God as well. Whatever we do, wherever we go, we need to think about where God is going to fit in the equation; for we cannot leave him outside and just think about what it is that we want to do. 
We must make room for him every day in our lives in our schedules, for we make no move without finding a place for him

​Let us consider our ways! Watch what we are doing and make sure we are doing everything right.