What has God done for you, lately?

God has given us many promises, and God is serious about wanting us to be blessed and to benefit from them all.
He has given us promises such as …
... "give and it will be given"
... "ask, and you will receive"
... "he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully"

And because God wants us to be blessed, He goes on to tell us ...
... that if we expect something we must also do something ...

Many of us have done that ...
… We have taken hold of God's promises, and have put some action to them ...
… We have confessed, worked, given, sown, believed …

But somehow the receiving has not been as expected….

The same happened to the Israelites …
They had returned from exile in Babylon, and had started to rebuild their land and their cities. Ofcourse there came pressure and opposition, things were just not going right ... and they became disheartened.
… Those promises seemed just not to be working for them ...
… God was just not doing for them what was in the promises

What could it be that was wrong…?

In response to their problem, God said this to His people, to Israel ...

What was God telling His people?
... Why did their sowing not work?
... Why were they not blessed when they should have been?

God said to Israel, in Haggai 1:5-7 ...
… You are doing much, but nothing is fulfilled.
… You are giving much but the return is little.
… You earn much but have holes in your pockets.
… There is something wrong with what you're doing.

But what was wrong with what they were doing …
... They were sowing ... that is right and good.
... They were working ... that is right and good.
... They were earning well and doing good ... and that is right and good.
Yet something was surely not right …

God continued to say to His people …
… Look at your ways ...
… Look at the heart that is in your ways …

What is at the heart of your actions?

• 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. --- Hag 1:9-10

Why are you doing … what you're doing ???
When I look at your action God says, I see that ...
… Building your house is more important to you than building My House ...
… Therefore my provision are not becoming your provision …

God was simply saying to them ...
… You are only looking to God for His promises, but not to what is important to Him…
and ...
… just acting on a promise of God’s without acknowledging Him…
… is as dead as doing nothing at all…

• 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. --- Hag 1:8

... Don’t just build your own house ...
... Don’t just look at your needs, wants and desires …
... Consider also My house, My desires …
God said to His people.

Have you acknowledge God in your plans and in your actions?
… In your everyday life?
Have you consider His house … the Body of Christ?
… and are you building His house, as you build your own?

Do you want God to do something in your life?
... then be prepared to do something for Him ...

Acknowledging God in your ways
Glorifying God in your actions
... In your giving ….
... In your work …
…In your life …

Build His House … as He builds yours ...