Verse of the Day 4/29

Haggai 1:7-8 (AMP) Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways (your previous and present conduct) and how you have fared.

    ⁸Go up to the hill country and bring lumber and rebuild [My] house, and I will take pleasure in it and I will be glorified, says the Lord [by accepting it as done for My glory and by displaying My glory in it].

Over the past few days we've considered some of the words from Abraham Lincoln's speeches as he established the National Day of Humiliation and Prayer as well as a day of Thanksgiving.  He was calling for the nation to "consider it's ways", and as the Amplified Bible indicates this involves previous and present conditions.  It is looking back to the faith of the founding fathers, then looking to what brought them to this current state of affairs.  The hope was that they would realize the error of their ways, that they had forgotten God and had gotten all caught up in themselves, for their personal well being while turning a blind eye to the injustices around.

 

Again, it was a call for each person to look within themselves.  To make the right choices for the common good, "to love your neighbor as yourself", to turn individual lives around which would lead to rebuilt homes, rebuilt churches and rebuilt communities.

 

We as a nation are in a similar position today.  There is much political posturing, everyone saying what they think needs to be said to win votes, win an election, without calling for, without taking a stand for what needs to be done, which starts with our personal and national relationship to the God that Abraham Lincoln desired that we turn to.

 

After years of neglect, there is plenty of "lumber", there are plenty of hungering hearts upon which the church, God's "living stones", may be built upon.  The passage starts with "Now, therefore...".  The time is now to turn.

 

In Christ,
Mike

 

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Eph 1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace  NIV

Haggai 1:5-10 English Standard Version (ESV)

⁵ Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. ⁶  You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.

⁷ "Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. ⁸ Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord. ⁹  You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. ¹⁰ Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce.