Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but 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 God 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, and the oil and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle, and on the labor of your hands.”

These words were shared through the prophet Haggai to a people who thought it was time to build their own paneled houses while the house of the Lord was in ruin.

After considering the empty results of building their own houses, they returned to the Lord and put first the building of the house of the Lord. When they turn and serve the Lord, He gives them this message:

“I am with you.”

He then pours our His Spirit on the whole remnant of the people.

Jesus reminds us, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in to steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” – Matthew 6:19-21

If you find yourself clothed but not warm, there is hope. Stop building your house and begin to build the Lord’s. Start the building with Christ as the foundation.

In Christ,

—Roger Garrison