Placing God’s Priorities Above Your Own

I often find that when I’m feeling most defeated, or useless, it is the result of my priorities being misplaced. It’s when I place my priorities above God’s. In the book of Haggai, the Jews are not prospering due to their misplacement of priorities. Instead of placing God’s will first, which was to rebuild the temple, they were working on their own homes and trying to get their own lives all sorted out and “right”, but were failing miserably. This is what God told Haggai to say to them:

“Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”

 Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”

 This is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the LORD. “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the LORD Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house. Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the oil and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle, and on the labor of your hands.”

Haggai 1:4-11

You see, God was showing them that all their effort was in vain if HE wasn’t first in their lives. They “Planted much but harvested little”, and were earning wages just to see it go down the drain.

My point today is simple; if you ever find yourself feeling like the people in this passage, I urge you to “give careful thought to your ways”. Because more often than not, your fundamental problem will be that of proirities.

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” -Matthew 6:33.

I tell you, if you do place God’s desires above your own, you will find yourself thoroughly blessed.