Consider Your Ways

Haggai 1:5-7

• Expound on the House of God NOT being built and the ramifications of it.

• God’s response was… CONSIDER YOUR WAYS

• God’s want to be THE PRIORITY in your life. (He has that right… HE IS GOD!)

• A Self-Evaluation Message

• There are things God wants to build in YOU!

• There are things that God wants to do FOR YOU!

• To many times we tie God’s hands because of our ways…

I. WHO SHOULD PAY SPECIAL ATTENTION TO THIS MESSAGE?

A. Those at greatest risk are the people who grew up in Church. (Their greatest risk is that they become un-teachable)

1. Don’t let your experience inoculate you from the “Present Reality of His Presence.”

2. Knowing about God and Knowing God are two different things.

3. Always be ready to learn and serve

a) Think of the value you have for God’s Kingdom

b) Spiritual Arrogance can side-line us! - (I’ve been unwittingly guilty of this at times because I grew up in Church)

B. Being a true Christian means that we not only hear the Word of God but we respond accordingly.

1. Be doers of the Word and not hearers only. (America’s Church has a lot of listeners…) James 1:19-24 (22) But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

2. The Christian Life is full of markers. (Personal indicators of our walk)

a) God wants us to be “hot” for Him! - Revelations 3:15-16

(1) Don’t let the devil lull you to sleep

(2) Don’t let your circumstances lull you to sleep

(3) Don’t sleep your life away - LIVE AWARE

b) Those who are actively trying to draw closer to the Lord will manifest co-operative attitudes and work for unity.

II. LIVING FOR HIS PURPOSE (DISCIPLESHIP)

A. Learning God’s Word

1. Read Your Bible… Everyday

2. Listen to Godly teachers and preachers who minister under the anointing as much as possible.

3. Listen to Christian Music more than any other kind of music. (If you listen to other kinds of music make sure it’s music that is morally pure and uplifting)

a) So you think you should only listen to Christian music? Then maybe you should only watch Christian Sports and only watch Christian TV…

b) You are in the world but not of it.

c) How can we influence our society if we are consistently absent from it.

d) Jesus came to seek and to save THOSE WHO ARE LOST!

B. Activating God’s Word

1. Speak - High Priest of our Confessions (Illustrate with good and bad confessions)

Hebrews 10:23-25 AMP

23. So let us seize and hold fast and retain without wavering the hope we cherish and confess and our acknowledgement of it, for He Who promised is reliable (sure) and faithful to His word.

24. And let us consider and give attentive, continuous care to watching over one another, studying how we may stir up (stimulate and incite) to love and helpful deeds and noble activities,

25. Not forsaking or neglecting to assemble together [as believers], as is the habit of some people, but admonishing (warning, urging, and encouraging) one another, and all the more faithfully as you see the day approaching.

a) Encourage one another to - Speak Life

b) Encourage one another to - Speak Encouragement

c) Encourage one another to - Keep Speaking God’s Word

C. Praying God’s Word

1. Keep a list of Scriptures handy for every challenge you face.

2. Find a “prayer buddy”. (Someone who wants to pray more than they want to gossip! LOL)

III. LIVING MORE AWARE:

A. Am I living right? Real Christians love the truth of God’s Word even when it cuts a little bit.

Hebrews 4:12 AMP For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and [the immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart.

B. Are you hungering and thirsting for righteousness? (Have an appetite for the Word and the Presence of God)

Matthew 5:6 KJV Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

Matthew 5:6 MSG You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God. He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat.

C. Do I embrace or dismiss evaluating my walk according to Galatians 5:19-23?

Galatians 5:19-23

WORKS OF THE FLESH

19. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,

20. Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,