We hope you enjoy this re-post from December 27, 2013. Be blessed! The Today’s Quote From God Team

You have sown much, but you have reaped little… – Haggai 1:6, Amplified Bible (AMP)

Treadmills are great for exercise, but there is one very ironic thing about them. For all the work one puts into walking or running on a treadmill, once the workout is done, you can honestly say that you’ve gotten nowhere. After all of your effort, you are in exactly the same place you started.

Life is a lot like a treadmill for many people. They work diligently. They strive. They struggle. But for all of their effort, they have gotten nowhere. Such was the lot of the Israelites in Haggai Chapter 1. Verse 6 (AMP) states:

You have sown much, but you have reaped little; you eat, but you do not have enough; you drink, but you do not have your fill; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages has earned them to put them in a bag with holes in it.

In short, the Israelites were stuck on the treadmill of life, making absolutely no progress at all. Why? The answer is found in verse 9 (AMP):

You looked for much [harvest], and behold, it came to little; and even when you brought that home, I blew it away. Why? says the Lord of hosts. Because of My house, which lies waste while you yourselves run each man to his own house [eager to build and adorn it].

The Israelites struggled because God Himself opposed them, and God Himself opposed them because they sought to build their own houses rather than God’s.

So many struggle to improve their earthly lot because they’ve made little or no effort to seek God’s lot first. Habitually placing their human desires above God’s heavenly ones, such people may find God Himself as the impediment to “getting ahead in life.”

God’s formula for material provision is not to seek our own kingdom first and God’s second. His formula is the exact opposite. As Christ teaches us in Matthew 6:33 (KJV):

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things [material provision; see Matthew 6:25-34] shall be added unto you.

This formula worked just fine for the widow of Zarephath in 1 Kings 17, and it will work just fine for you and for me.

God promises no one wealth by seeking His kingdom first. He does, however, promise that all of our needs will be met if we seek His kingdom first. The odds are pretty good, though, that God will throw an extra gift our way every now and then; not because we deserve it, but because He is merciful. You just focus on doing what God wants you to do with your life. The rest will come, just like He said it would.