God Is Unhappy With The Church

By Odon Bulamba (summary only - 28th April, 2006)

Haggai 1:3-11

God was complaining in this message about the behavior of the people of Israel, ‘I’ve been blessing them day after day, taking care of them, protecting them against danger, they don’t pay me back but I try to provide for them but they forget about me to the point where my house is now destroyed and I don’t know where to rest among them’. God is at the limit because all the signs of the end times have happened which means the time to finish this world is here but Jesus Christ stops Him. God is unhappy because the church has changed its shape; people go to church to make relationships with people and not with God or for materialistic reasons.

God gave everything they needed, He blessed their land with a huge harvest but the more God was giving the more they forgot about Him to the point that no one visited the temple anymore and they didn’t know the temple was destroyed because no one cared and everyone was too busy (better to make money than to go to the temple). God started to grumble.

In the New Testament God said He would not live in a temple built with human hands because we don’t respect it and we invite God there but He is by Himself because we don’t visit. Imagine if Michael invited you to come to His house and he didn’t turn up and you waited for 24 hours, how would you feel? Would you come back again? What if he did that five times, would you trust him? People forgot the temple of God and went away and needed to gain money and organize their business. God saw He had to punish them and the first thing was to show them they are guilty.

How much time do you take to look after your body? But when you look deep inside and find the temple is broken, do you care? When we do something wrong we think it’s fine if no one sees but God is there at every second and can look deep in our hearts and discover all our mistakes and see how ugly we are. ‘I’ve been blessing Hayley but you are unable to look after your temple (body, heart and soul).

No body is happy to work many hours without gaining money, it’s not easy and because the church has been destroying the walls and ceiling, God has been cutting down the salary to the point someone can read the Bible ten times without understanding and someone wants to worship but God won’t bless them with a good voice and someone wants to pray but are unable because we want the glory and not to glorify God so we can impress others. We are show offs and God is wondering where is His glory, ‘I gave you that gift of visiting, of singing, of praying but you don’t give it back to me’. God is jealous and needs glory.

‘You people, I need you to build up my temple, go to the mountain and find a stick and come back and build it up’. God will never come down from heaven to earth to fix your spiritual problems, He will tell you, ‘your heart has a problem, please fix it’.

No body likes someone who complains a lot because they make you lose your joy and peace and they annoy you to the point you lose your love for them but God doesn’t want you to lose your love for Him. In II Tim it says that in the end days men will be lovers of money and the love of God will decrease and they will just love God so that God will protect them and look after them. When we face a hard situation we want God to intervene but when we face joy we forget about God.

God was calling to all of Israel and not just to the Levites; everybody went to the mountain and started to build the temple of God because their contribution was important. (Vs 8) the temple was to be built for the glory of God, not for their glory. Jesus Christ will be happy to see you contributing and when you say, ‘Praise God for that’ instead of saying the glory belongs to you. Many people show they are people of God but when a test comes they are unable to pass (practice the Word of God).

For the glory of God, what do you do? To build the temple of God, what is your role? You can be afraid not sure of what your contribution will be but make a step and you will see that feeling will change and you will discover you have something to do. God is asking us to go up the hill and get some wood and if you are unable to carry big wood then get a small one and once you are up the hill you will have a good view and the things that you can’t see down at the bottom of the hill, you will be able to see. God will raise you up to see everything. People who need to be servants of God need to go up and once you are down you will know what needs there are of those that are down and you can build.

Whatever you are doing on earth it is a treasure in heaven and one day God will pay you back. When you die only your soul will go to heaven and your soul will take your actions which you did on earth and those actions will speak on your behalf, whether they be good or bad. God is calling us to build up His church physically and spiritually where God’s glory can be manifested.

Jesus Christ is the cornerstone and we are the stones trying to find a good shape. If we are together in unity and in the same agreement we can find a few hours to pray and ask the cornerstone where, how and when. We need to pray and know what is our objective, for whom we will do this, ourselves, other people? We need to define our objective and to pray for support from God. We need to fast because we are starting a battle against satan because he will not be happy. Are you prepared for the battle, are you well equipped?

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