"Seriously Consider Your Lifestyle" (March 10, 2014)

"Now therefore thus saith the Lordof 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 earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways." Haggai 1:5-7

"Consider your ways" is literally, seriously consider your lifestyle? Set your heart upon your ways; look at what is happening to you.

You don't hear much about judgement today. But God was judging His people concerning material things, and they were not recognizing it as His judgement.

The preachers of America have been slow at pointing out God's judgement on our country. They've taken the secularists' view calling these acts, acts of nature. The book of Hebrews says: "If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?" (Hebrews 12:7)

When God disciplines us, there is a reason for it. The child of God needs to consider his ways. He needs to examine his own heart to see why God is putting him through the mill or using sandpaper on him. For the people of Israel, there had been crop failure. There had been famine. But they never once attributed this to their disobedience. They were trying to explain it in other ways. This sounds so similar to what our nation has been going through.

What about God's children in our day? "Oh," they say "that's just my luck." There is no such thing as luck for the child of God. Difficulties have a purpose in your life. God won't let anything happen to you unless it has a purpose. God is trying to develop something valuable in your heart and life.

I want you to notice how God enlarges the great difference between his ways as opposed to our ways.

In Isaiah He says, "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:9)

Man is in rebellion against God, but the Lord Jesus said "...He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep...I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture." (John 10: 1,2,9)

Now let me ask, "which way are you on today? Which path are you taking? Are you on the broadway of life where you can do as you please?" The broad way leads only to destruction. But God says that the way which leads to life is a narrow way - Chris is that way; He is the only way to the Father.

One way starts broad but then narrows like a funnel; but when you enter the narrow way, it becomes broader and brighter as you go along, until you can go in and out and find pasture. You will have life and have it abundantly.

Listen - it is time to consider your ways.

Where are you headed today?

How is your marriage working out?

If you are in college, do you have a goal in life?

If you are a young lady, how about the young man you are dating? Where is he leading you?

What is going to happen to you?

Why don't you seriously consider the direction you are going.

~ Pastor John