Golden Vessels And The Perfume Of Prayer….

Morning!

Raises his cup of coffee

What does it mean to lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven?

What does it mean to keep ourselves unspotted from the world?

Haggai 1: 3-9

“The Word of the LORD came by Haggai the prophet saying, ‘Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?’  Now therefore, thus says the LORD Of hosts: ‘Consider your ways!  You have sown much, and bring in little; You eat, but do not have enough; You drink, but you are not filled with drink; You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; And he who earns wages, Earns wages to put into a bag with holes.  Thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘Consider your ways!’  Go up to the mountains and bring wood and build the temple, that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified,’ says the LORD.  ‘You looked for much, but indeed it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away.  Why?’  Says the LORD of hosts.  ‘Because of My house that is in ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house.”

There are two temples that we need to worry about.  The temple of the Holy Spirit, which is our bodies and then there is the actual temple, or in our case, the church.  In our passage here in Haggai God is talking through the prophet and instructing His people to pay attention to building the temple for God.  In the surrounding passages explanations are given for the various ills that have befallen the people.  There is a drought that won’t relent.  This passage, among others, leads me to believe that natural disasters are used by God to try to get a large group of people’s attention for some reason.  That reason is always explained by His prophets.

What says The LORD?

“Consider your ways.”

How are we doing on building our temples to The LORD?

Proverbs 16: 3

“Commit thy works unto the LORD and thy thoughts shall be established.”

Have we sown much?

Have we brought in a little?

What have we sown?

What have we reaped?

Do we drink in The Holy Spirit?

Do we harden our hearts when we hear Him?

Have we clothed ourselves in Christ?

Are we walking in the light with Him?

For Jesus asked for us to pray that workers would be sent out into the field.  There are sowers of the Word that are needed.  The question we need to ask ourselves is how much of the Word are we sowing?  If we are not sowing the Word, what are we sowing instead?  If we are sowing the Word and we have not reaped what Scripture teaches, what ways should we consider?  The Holy Spirit is with us always.  We are sealed with the promise of Him and He will guide us into all Truth, if we keep Him close and listen.  The Christian is to receive the implanted Word that has the power to save our souls with meekness, but we are to be a doer of the work as well for it is in our many fruits, both physical and spiritual that we glorify God.

Let’s put on the new man some today!

James 1: 27

“Pure and undefiled religion before God and The Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.”

What do we bring into our temples?  In our study in Daniel one of the things which has stood out to me is how Nebuchadnezzar took vessels, holy items, from the temple of God and placed them in the temple of his own gods.  These same vessels, vessels of gold and silver and precious jewels, were used by Belshazzar and defiled before the writing on the wall miracle we are just about to get to.  Point is, inside the temple of God there are vessels of gold and there are vessels of silver.  There are vessels of wood, fancy and carved and there are vessels of pottery painted.

And then there are prayers.

Both types of vessels are precious to God, but it is the prayers of the saints that become the vessels the enemy wants to steal.  The heavenly fruits.

Have we lined our temples, both physical and spiritual, with vessels of gold?

James 5: 13-20

“Is anyone among you suffering?  Let him pray.  Is anyone cheerful?  Let him sing psalms.  Is anyone among you sick?  Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him anointing him with oil in the Name of the Lord.  And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up.  And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.  Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.  The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.  Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months.  And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.  Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.”

I think that’s a good place to start for the day!

Happy waiting!

:)