Consider This!

WHAT DID GOD SAY TO ME THIS MORNING

Last night as I was saying my prayers, I prayed that when I wake up, I would feel well-rested like I had actually gotten a good night’s rest. Guess what? I woke up feeling exactly like that! That’s the power of prayer y’all. God is concerned with the little details about us too. He cares how I feel. He answered my prayers on how I wanted to feel this morning. That’s a good good Father right there!

This morning, I heard the Holy Spirit say: Don’t keep going in the wrong direction. STOP! Consider how things are going for you. The enemy wants you to be so busy that you don’t stop to consider or stop to reflect on how things are actually going for you. When things aren’t going right, it’s because you haven’t put Me first. Handle MY business first and then your business will benefit!

WOW!

Handle God’s Business First, THEN your business will benefit!

After hearing that, I wrote down this phrase in my journal 4 times:

I am with you says the Lord.
I am with you says the Lord.
I am with you says the Lord.
I am with you says the Lord.

Each time I wrote it down, I felt it all the more. God is with ME!

Today before I opened my Bible, I asked the Holy Spirit to show me something I had never seen before, even if I had read it before. Guess what? You already know. He did exactly that! You see this pattern here? When I pray for things like well-rested sleep He answers; and when I pray specifically for scriptural surprises, He answers that too!! Your concerns are His concerns too.

So I opened to the book of Haggai. Of course I have been here before. I have actually read this portion of scripture more than twice, but I was excited about what the Holy Spirit was about to reveal to me TODAY! And guess what? Reveal He did! The stand out verses were Haggai 1:14 and Haggai 2:15. So to give a brief context, the people had neglected to rebuild the Lord’s house, but they were living in luxurious houses. Pause for a second and let me say this. If you are living in any kind of house (whether you think it’s luxury or not), and you are not giving to God’s house through your tithes and offerings, then you definitely need to keep reading and consider this.

In Haggai the people weren’t making the Lord a priority in their lives. The Lord said in Haggai 1:5-6, consider how things are for you. You have planted much but harvested little. You have food to eat, but not enough. You have wine to drink, but not enough to satisfy your thirst. You have clothing to wear but not enough to keep you warm. Your wages disappear as though you were putting them in pockets filled with holes!

Do any of you feel that way? Like you’re getting by with barely enough or every time you think you are getting ahead, it feels like somebody punched a big hole in your pocket and money is just disappearing? If so, you’re just like the people in the book of Haggai. You haven’t put the Lord first! But the good news is that the Lord wants you to consider how things are going and then be obedient to establishing, or rebuilding the relationship with Him as first in your life.

The Lord has chosen you specifically for a purpose in this life, but you must lay the proper foundation with Him to perform those purposes. Life has been just okay for you, but not everything it COULD be. I heard the Holy Spirit say: I have specifically chosen you. Nothing else can work for you until you put My Business First! When you put the Kingdom first, I will honor you!

Another revelation I received from Haggai was in chapter 2, verses 18 and 19. I have read these verses before but this time I saw something new. The New Living Translation says: On this eighteenth day of December (the Hebrew translates this as the 24th day of the month), the day when the foundation of the Lord’s Temple was laid - carefully consider this: I am giving you a promise now while the seed is still in the barn, before you have harvested your grain and before the grapevine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have produced their crops. From this day onward, I will bless you!

When I read those verses, I saw this: Once you lay the foundation, God will begin to bless you BEFORE you even erect the structure and lay the first brick!! From the day the foundation is laid and onward, He says, I will bless you. That means when you put God as the foundation of your life and build your life on top of Him, He will bless you even before you sow a seed and even before you reap any harvest!!! And if we are keeping with the house metaphor…He will bless you even before house is BUILT!! He is going to bless you at the FOUNDATION LEVEL!!!

God is saying keep me as the foundation. Keep me as the solid rock on which you build anything in your life.

I am a living witness to this! From the day I committed to putting God first, by spending time with Him through prayer every morning, my life has been beyond blessed! I believe His Word when He says, I promise to bless you even BEFORE you sow a seed! Y’all, this has been my life! As soon as I made God my foundation, He blessed me! And as I have continued to build on this foundation, every seed sown has reaped a harvest! And the best part is that He is still putting seeds in my hand to sow and you better believe I am sowing them with Him as the foundation!

In Haggai 2:15, the Lord says consider how things were for you BEFORE you began to lay the foundation of the Lord’s Temple! Listen, when I look back at how I was BEFORE prayer, it was exactly how He described it in Haggai 1:6. The one that I could truly identify with before prayer was: Your wages disappear as though you were putting them in pockets filled with holes! Y’all it was like I had major holes in my pocket. I couldn’t get ahead financially for nothing. I was paying late fees for no reason. Just wasting money. I thought I was planting, because I was tithing, but I was still harvesting little!! WHY? Because even though I showed up for church every single Sunday and paid my tithes, I didn’t have God as my foundation in every single area of my life. See you can’t build nothing on a shaky foundation, and the life I was trying to build wasn’t solid at ALL!! It was crumbling bit by bit every time I thought I was building something. It wasn’t until I was obedient and put God first as my foundation that He honored my obedience and began to bless me!

That’s all God wants from you. Consider how your life is right now. Is God your foundation? Can you identify yourself in Haggai 1:6? If so, it means God is trying to get your attention. Until you give him your undivided attention, you will continue to experience Haggai 1:6, 9-11 and Haggai 2:16-17. Get your Bibles out and read those verses!

God has chosen you and wants to bless you and honor you. All you have to do is make HIM your foundation!

OHH WEEE!!

P.S. I can tell that I got some good, answered-prayer-kind-of-rest, because this message has some fire on it! LOL!

Oh yeah, please read the King James Version, the New Living Translation, the Contemporary English Version, or whatever your favorite translation, but most definitely read the Message Translation. That Message translation will straight clown you!! LOL!!! To me the Message is straight gangsta!! LOL!! Look at how Haggai 2:15 is broken down.

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SALVATION PRAYER

If you’re not a believer and have a desire to be, openly confess and declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9). When you pray that prayer out loud, you are saved. Get connected with a good, bible-based church in your community and start having a conversation through prayer with God every day. And let me be the first to welcome you to your new life with Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. YAAAAY!!!!! You made the best decision you could ever make! Feel free to email me at info@onassignmentbyGod.com and let me know about your newfound life or if you need prayer for anything.

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