August 31, 2011

  • Consider Your Ways

    What does Jeremiah 29:10-14 tell us about the character of God? What hope can we, in our own context, take from these texts?

    God desires peace and good things for us.  He wants to give us hope and a future – both here and eternally, and he won’t sacrifice the one for the other.  He will do whatever it takes that we will have a future in heaven with Him one day.  If life Here is difficult, He allows it to refine us and to make us more like Him, more dependent on Him and through it all He is with us, helping us and leading us.

    GOD DESIRES THE BEST FOR US

    He promises that when we call upon Him, He will hear us.  He is always available to us right away, and is never too busy for us or too tired to listen to us.  He says that if we seek Him wholeheartedly we will find Him.  Do we passionately pursue Him?  Is it our greatest desire to live in His presence? It it what really matters the most to us?  Is continual fellowship with Him and becoming like Him the goal of our lives?

    GOD ALWAYS HEARS US

    PASSIONATELY PURSUE A RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

    If we will seek Him, He promises to set us free from captivity to sin that enslaves us, and from the trouble we find ourselves in.  He has the power to do it if we are willing to empty ourselves of self and allow Him to do the work in our lives.

    IF THE SON MAKES YOU FREE YOU WILL BE FREE INDEED

    It is His greatest desire to bring us back to Himself and to transform our lives. 

    OUR TRANSFORMATION IS WITHIN REACH

    After seventy years, as foretold, the Lord began the restoration of the exiles back to the Promised Land. Israel was to be given another chance to fulfill her prophetic destiny. The work of rebuilding the temple did not go as smoothly or as quickly as it should have. Forces, internal and external, got in the way, and the work was delayed.This was not as the Lord would have it, and He spoke through Haggai (you can read it in Haggai 1)  to let the people know His displeasure. What happened? What diverted their attention? Why is that so easy to do? 

    It seems that they had lost interest in restoring the house of the Lord and were more interested in what they could do for themselves.  They had lost sight of the work of the Lord and were living lives focused on self.  It is really easy for things of this world and the cares of this life to take our attention and divert it away from God.  This is probably one of the enemy’s most effective strategies for keeping us away from God. 


    DON’T LET LIFE CAUSE YOU TO LOSE SIGHT OF GOD

    How easy it is to let worldly toils, worldly desires, even worldly needs get in the way of our spiritual responsibilities. The Lord let them know that they would never have true satisfaction apart from their devotion to Him and the work He had given them to do. All too often we can in our own way make the same mistake, getting so caught up in the ways of the world that we neglect what should be first and foremost in our lives: our relationship with God. Maybe the Lord is saying to us, “Consider your ways.”

    Consider your ways. What do your ways, your actions, the things you do, and don’t do—what do they say about your relationship to the Lord? In what ways might you be guilty of the same things as the people depicted here in Haggai?

    What you spend most of your time on and how you live your life is usually is a good indicator of what your priorities are.  We may desire to live our lives connected to God, walking with Him, but how easily our attention is diverted and we forget God because we have not cultivated the habit of including Him in everything.  We forget that without Him we can do nothing and that in order to make our lives count we have to be totally dependent on Him. 

    INCLUDE GOD IN EVERYTHING YOU DO

    CHOOSE TO BE TOTALLY DEPENDENT ON GOD – HIS WISDOM FAR EXCEEDS OURS!

    How much we need to take time to consider our ways.  Change comes by choice and not by chance.  If we would have things differently in our lives, we have to do something differently.  More than anything else to succeed we need to purpose to seek God wholeheartedly – be intentional, make it a priority, just like you would in pursuing any other goal. 

    BE INTENTIONAL ABOUT SEEKING GOD WHOLEHEARTEDLY

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