Haggai 1:5–9 5. Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.
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.
7. Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.
8. 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.
9. 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.
Haggai prophesied in 520 BC, after Israel returned from the Babylonian captivity.
The people were free, but they were distracted.
They had deliverance in their hands, but directions had slipped from their hearts.
They were out of bondage,
but bondage was not yet out of them.
They had been released from chains, yet they kept building their lives around what once held them.
It’s one thing’s to be released from out of bondage, but it’s a whole different thing to be free out of bondage.
Just because you leave one relationship and enter another doesn’t mean you’re healed.
If you carry the same wounds, the same patterns, and the same responses into the new relationship, you haven’t been set free, you’ve only changed the person, not the problem.
Freedom is not about who you’re with, it’s about what’s been dealt with.
Just because you quit one job and start another doesn’t mean you’ve escaped the struggle.
If you bring the same attitude, the same discipline issues, and the same work ethic into the new workplace, you haven’t been delivered, you’ve just changed the building that you clock into.
That wasn’t freedom, that was a transfer.
Ok let me make it plain. Just because you leave one church and go to another church doesn’t mean that you are free. Because if you take the same habit of the old church, to the new church have haven’t been set free you have just relocated.
Relocation without transformation is not freedom.
They rebuilt their own houses, but neglected God’s house.
They invested in their comfort, while God’s altar sat unattended.
They beautified their private spaces, but left God’s dwelling unfinished.
They secured their own roofs, and yet allowed heaven’s house to remain exposed.
The foundation of the temple had been laid years earlier, but construction stopped.
This is a post-exile people with misplaced priorities.
The statement post-exile means when they came back home after captivity.
So this post exile people were misplaced and had misplaced their priority, and God sends Haggai not to shout, but to awaken.
Now understand that God’s issue in Haggai is not money.
It is about foundation order.
Israel had activity without alignment.
They had efforts without structure.
And movement without meaning.
God says:
Consider your ways.
Faith cannot be built on convenience. Faith must be built on priority.
You see we can be busy, and still be barren.
We can be saved and still be stalled.
We can have faith, but built on the wrong order.
Haggai teaches us:
Faith begins when God is put back in His place
What we build first determines what will lasts.
A neglected foundation produces frustrated results.
We don’t lose faith overnight. We lose it brick by brick through neglect.
Here is a Faith Principle
Before God strengthens your faith, He checks what it’s built on.
Some people don’t need more faith, they just need to check their foundation. And check the foundation.
When we put God first. Everything else follows. Here it is. If the foundation is right. The house will stand.
We need to stop asking God to bless what we have built without Him.
We need to stop expecting overflow from a misaligned order.
When God becomes first again:
Provision realigns.
Peace returns.
Faith is strengthen.
May I tell you that faith is not rebuilt by excitement, it’s rebuilt by obedience.
A contractor was called to inspect a cracked building. Everyone blamed the walls, the roof, and the weather. When he dug beneath the structure, he found the foundation had been laid on soft ground. The building wasn’t cursed, it was misaligned.
Once the foundation was reset, the same materials stood strong.
Faith doesn’t fail because God is weak. Faith fails when the foundation is wrong.
Our week 1 declaration should be:
Lord, I am rebuilding my faith.
Not on feelings.
Not on convenience.
But on You first.
