Good day and praise the Lord for another wonderful chance to spread the word. The words “paneled houses” has been on my mind for a couple days and it took me back to this message I have shared before and as I was browsing through the Minor Prophets, I ran into some interesting scripture. I’m sharing what I found. Let it bless you.
Today’s Prayer
(A very personal prayer)
Father, I’m so sorry for the pride that creeps into my heart. You alone are worthy. You spoke this earth into being. You breathed the breath of life into mankind. You hold the universe in place. Who am I to take credit for anything? Thank You for all You have given and all You have done. Thank you for meeting my needs and for all the You have accomplished through me. Please, make me a blessing to others and to You. Minister through me to a lost and needy world. Fill me up with Your strength and wisdom, that I might lift Your name high. I thank you and praise You. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.
Let’s eat.
Paneled Houses
“Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?” – Haggai 1:4
My friends, this message dropped into my spirit like a ton of bricks. There is a crisis of grand magnitude in the spiritual house of God today. The moral fiber of our world has eroded. Greed, idolatry, and pleasure are the gods of our day. And it is no different in the Body of Christ.
In the bible, the prophet Haggai wrote about a people who had lost concern for the need to build God’s house because they were so focused on their own worldly needs. It’s a dangerous place to get with God. When our world begins to focus around increasing our pleasure, building bigger and better homes, and failing to make what is important to God important in our own lives, this should be a warning to us.
Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” He said to them, ” ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den of thieves’ ” (Matthew. 21:12-13).
Jesus came into Jerusalem and found the believers buying and selling in the temple. As far as they knew, this was an acceptable practice in their day. Their fathers did it, and now they were doing it. It was business as usual. Jesus got angry, turned over the tables, and said that His house was a house of prayer. He found the believers of the day seeing His house as a place for profit, not prayer. They had stepped into a place of complacency that was not acceptable to the Lord. When we begin to blend in with the moral condition of an ungodly world, we begin losing God’s perspective on life.
It’s easy to begin blending in with our culture and to accept what is being modeled by the ungodly. God called us to be salt in a world that needs much salt. “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men” (Matthew 5:13). Each of us must ask ourselves if we have lost our salt. Are we having an impact on our world? Or is our world having an impact on us? Ask God to give you a vision for how you can be salt to our world today.
Quote of the Day
Praise lies upon a higher plain than thanksgiving. When I give thanks, my thoughts still circle around myself to some extent. But in praise my soul ascends to self-forgetting adoration, seeing and praising only the majesty and power of God, His grace and redemption.
Ole Kristian O. Hallesby
WITH HOPE AND FAITH
REV. ELDER G E STERRETT
FOUNDER
GCKRS HELPING HAND FOUNDATION – THE RELATIONSHIP FACTORY