Make a U-Turn in the Road of Life
By Pastor Jim May
Making your life into what it should be can be compared to building a house in many ways. Each day is another building block; each hour another board; and everything we do becomes another nail in the life we build. Has the life you’ve been building become what you wanted it to be? Does your reality match you dreams? Most of us had great dreams and goals in life that just seem so elusive and we wonder what life has in store around the next corner.
If you are building it alone, it’s easy to get off track or to be drawn aside because you don’t have a good blueprint to follow. There’s only one blueprint that we can use to build a life that is rewarding and fulfilled. That Blueprint is the Word of God, the Holy Bible.
If I was going to try to build a car, would I check out the instruction manual for someone who is a carpenter? If you are going to build a life then you need to check out the instruction manual from the One who created life in the beginning.
We didn’t come from a big bang, or from a monkey, or from some slime that somehow crawled out of the pit and evolved into a man. No, you were created in the very image of God. He looks a lot like you do. He has a body in the form of the Lord Jesus Christ; a spirit in the form of the Holy Spirit, and an eternal soul or existence. He didn’t evolve – He was Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever.
I want to draw your attention to the Book of Haggai this morning. Let’s look at what the prophet had to say to Israel and learn from it.
Building a life means that we have to walk some rough roads sometimes. All of us have seen the hard times. We have hit a few potholes in life’s highway. We gave tried building a better life for ourselves by using our wits, through hard labor and a lot of trial and error. Sadly the errors seem to outweigh the right and we find ourselves facing more trials than we expected.
The good new is that God has promised us in John 10:10, "The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."
Darius, the King of the Persians, was ruling over the people whom God had chosen as His own. Israel was created as a nation, chosen as a people and God was trying to mold them into His own image to the be nation that would bring the gospel message to the whole world.
In the same fashion, Satan rules and reigns over man who was created in God’s image. All of mankind is a slave, conquered by sin, and held in chains of guilt and shame by the enemy of his soul.
Israel, and the temple in Jerusalem, lay in ruins. Nearly 70 years had passed since Nebuchadnezzar had led the Babylonian army into Israel and destroyed the temple. Because of Israel’s sin of rebellion, they would pay 10-fold for their sin. If 7 is God’s number of completeness, then they would sever 10 times more than that for what they did.
Have you been taken captive by the devil? Did he, or does he, have a strangled hold on your life right now? Were you bound in chains while the life that God wanted you to have lay in ruins and wreck? Were your dreams shattered by sin? Were you torn away from the “good life” that you thought would be yours only to be bound and imprisoned in a life that you really didn’t want?
That’s what the condition of Israel was at this time. The God asked a question of his people.
Haggai 1:2-5, "Thus speaketh 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 ceiled houses, and this house lie waste? Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways."
We can run though life blindly, running as fast as we can, but if we don’t stop and take account of where we came from, where we are and where we are going, then we will probably end up where we don’t want to be. Most people go from day to day with not much thought for tomorrow. What will life be life for me next year, in 5 years, later on, if Jesus tarries? And most of all, where will I be a thousand, or a million years from now. Your soul and your spirit will live forever somewhere. We need to make sure that we are headed for the right place.
God’s question is this, “What are you doing about Jesus Christ? What are you doing that will guarantee that you make Heaven your home?” We are always trying to make a better life here, and often fail to do so, but what about your Heavenly Home? Are you making plans to life there? Are you building the Kingdom of God in your own life? Are you living according to the Bible and adding to your reward in Heaven, or are you tearing it down by doing your own thing and living for the devil? You can’t have it both ways.
You might think that you are living the good life right now. How many think that you’re life is perfect that way it is? Are you happy with where you are right now in life? I dare say that the only ones who can say yes are those who are living for the Lord. Sadly though, many of those who live for Jesus are never satisfied either.
Haggai 1:6, "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."
Does that sound like your life? You work, work, work but you never get ahead. There’s never enough to pay the bills; never enough to meet your needs; you are always hungry for more and never satisfied. You try to surround yourself with good things but they don’t meet your need. Everything around you seems to just drain you more and more. What little money you get just disappears and you don’t even know where it goes. You get your paycheck on Friday and by Monday you are broke and there’s still bills to pay. You’re cry is, “Lord, get me off this merry go round and help me to get my life in order.”
Haggai 1:7-11, "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. Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the LORD of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house. Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit. And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labour of the hands."
Just think about it. Stop and think. Stop and examine your life and see if you need to make a change. If change needs to happen then it must begin with you and you alone. God has not changed, you have. His love for you is still the same, but is your love for Him different? God still wants you to be blessed, so if you aren’t experiencing those blessings then something in you is withholding them. It’s time for a change and it begins with you and the way you live your life.]
God says to “bring wood and build the house”. That means that there is some work that you need to do. “Bringing the wood and building the house” is your job. God has given you the blueprint in His Word; he leads you by His Spirit; he directs your paths; he has laid a way to success in life before you – but it is up to you to listen, obey and walk the right path. God won’t do that for you because you have to do so by your own free will.
Bring wood by giving God your time, your dreams, your ambitions, your goals, your life in surrender to His will. Then get to work doing a work for him, whatever that work is. Often the work that God calls you to do is right in front of you, you just don’t see it unless you are looking for it in faith. It may be to work with the kids or the youth, or to mow the grass, or to paint a room, or to teach a class, or to play music or sing. But whatever work appears before you that you see needs to be done for the Lord, then do it. That’s your calling for the moment. When you are faithful in the little things, then God will give you bigger things to do for Him. But it always starts small and that’s why so many people won’t step out and do anything. If they can’t be seen and given credit, they won’t do anything.
God says that if you will “bring the wood and build the house” that He will take pleasure in it.
Don’t you want God to be happy with you, and the life that you are living? I want to know that I am pleasing God and that my life is giving glory to God who helps me to live it.
Don’t you get tired of looking for hope and getting nothing? Don’t you hate working all the time and having nothing to really show for your labor? God says that as long as you are living your life to please yourself instead of Him, or you are serving the devil instead of serving the Lord, then your life will never be blessed and you will always be looking but never getting anywhere and the more you try, the worse it will get.
Because we refuse to obey the Lord’s call upon our lives, and we choose to do own thing instead, God withholds the blessings that should be ours. I’ve missed out on so much in the past. I don’t want to miss out on anymore. How about you?
God says that He brought you into the dry places where you would always be thirsty for more and never satisfied. He allowed you to have a few high points in your life, only to allow you to fall back into the valley of despair. He has withdrawn his hand of blessing from your food, your work, your home, your lands and anything and everything that you try to accomplish. God’s blessings and provisions aren’t there because you aren’t building the “House of God” in your own heart and life. You are letting God’s influence in your life lie dormant instead of making Him the center of your life.
Haggai 1:12-14, "Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the LORD their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the LORD their God had sent him, and the people did fear before the LORD. Then spake Haggai the LORD’S messenger in the LORD’S message unto the people, saying, I am with you, saith the LORD. And the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and did work in the house of the LORD of hosts, their God,"
It’s time to do like Israel and get to work building the Kingdom of God in our own hearts. If we do, then God will be pleases with us. Then He will truly become our God and we will again be called His People.
Haggai 2:3-9, "Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing? Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the LORD; and be strong, O Joshua, son of Josedech, the high priest; and be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the LORD, and work: for I am with you, saith the LORD of hosts: According to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so my spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not. For thus saith the LORD of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the LORD of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the LORD of hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the LORD of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the LORD of hosts."
Mankind isn’t what he once was. Man was innocent, intelligent far above what he is now, and he was perfect before God. None of us can remember those days. We can only look back at what was and wish that it could be that way again. We see ourselves now as only a wreck, or a shell of what we could have been, and what we once were.
We look back over life and see that we have come a long way from the days of our childhood when we walked in comparative innocence. We have been changed and affected by our environment, our friends, our family, our schools, our jobs and the circumstances of our lives until we are nothing like we once where then.
But God says, “Be strong and hold on.” He has big plans for you and I. It won’t be long until God will come to your rescue. He will again open the windows of Heaven and pour out blessings if you will just make a U-Turn and come back to him.
He has the power to shake Heaven and Earth. He can move the sea, meaning the people all around you, and he can make the dry places fertile again. God will come into your life if you let Him and, in the end, you will be a better person than you were before, because Jesus will wash your sins away and give you a new life.
When that day comes, and you have surrendered your life to Him, God will bring you the peace you search for. He will supply your need.
Won’t you come to Him? Make a U-Turn and begin to build the House of God in your own heart and life. Make Jesus the center of everything you do and live for Him. That’s when the blessings will begin to come.
