At the heart of all of God’s dealings with us is His love. This love exists and flows from Him independent and regardless of our reaction or objection to it. God loves because it represents who He is to a fault. “I have loved you, saith the Lord”, Malachi explains – clearly, God is not afraid of showing His feelings. Christian experience teaches that there is a visible, albeit underlying consistency to all of God’s actions or words that most keen observers of the Bible cannot miss. So, when He tells the people of that time that He loves them, He is also telling us today that He loves us. This is true because He doesn’t change – He is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).
Interestingly, what might make God’s love for us less palpable and more abstract actually has more to do with us than Him. I love how in the Book of Titus chapter 2 vs 11, the Apostle Paul basically throws down the gauntlet and says that the presence of God’s grace makes it virtually impossible to not be saved. As such, the only mitigating factors to this are that maybe a person never hears about God so they never know they can believe in Him – faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, after all – or that a person chooses to not believe. By God’s grace, with each passing day, the first scenario is becoming less and less likely. However, as a cautionary tale, it is telling that the response of Israel in the Book of Malachi to God’s reminder of His love is the acerbic retort “Wherein hast thou loved us?”
God’s love is a differentiating factor between Him and anyone else to the extent that anyone who loves like Him actually cannot be told apart from Him. So, we are either in Him or out of Him. The power of God’s love is bound up in the immense value inherent in the construct of choice, which is something we enjoy but sometimes take for granted. Just as He loved Jacob, He loves you and I wholeheartedly and intentionally. Which begs the question: what is the deal with Esau and the hate in verse 3 of Malachi chapter 1? Well, firstly, based on John 3:16, it is abundantly clear that God loves the world and everyone in it without exception or prejudice. Secondly, at the time of the writing of the Book of Malachi, Esau was long dead and buried but His chosen life of displeasure to God and everything that was bound up in that kind of a life – because of God’s consistency – would be equally displeasing if present in any other person’s life. Which is to say, there was no specific hate for Esau. He simply led a life that displeased God and anyone who lives that same kind of life will just as equally taste of God’s displeasure not because God has favorites but simply because God hates sin and is consistent in how He approaches a life of unrepentant sin (“with indignation forever.”)
As we speak on the idea of a worthy God, the goal is to leave you with the distinct impression that what makes God worthy of our lives is not the demand we think He makes for it but instead the request which we can refuse to accept about His love which would be undeterred by such a refusal. God is stronger than man’s will. In verse four, Edom assuredly plots its comeback but God has other ideas. As the adage goes “Man plans and God laughs.” Yet, this strength is never misused to force anyone into a decision they do not want to make. As humans, in our relationships between ourselves, we praise those who are able to show restraint but God actually surpasses human restraint every day (Psalm 103:10). He is content just to have a people who love Him for Him. After all, He knows that come rain or sunshine, when the time comes, He will be magnified.
A subtlety which the Book of Malachi possesses concerns how it shows another side of God that we may not understand very well even though we see it quite often. This is His desire and jealousy for us. In identifying Himself as a Father and a Master, God evokes the bonds of the relationships that He expects the people of Israel should be feeling. Neither is wielded as a threat but both are clearly bookmarks of a relationship dynamic and a time and place which He longs to be in. Just consider this: the all-powerful God can show emotional vulnerability! For contrast, in the realm of men, an excess of power, if given sufficient time, can lead to abuse. However, with God, this is not the case. With Him it’s just meaningful and affirming emotional and spiritual connection with the person who holds the whole world in His hands.
Another aspect of God which is dealt with by Malachi is His unmatched emotional intelligence. Tellingly, the act by the people of Israel of giving “polluted bread” as an offering to God was seen and interpreted as a statement about their views towards Him i.e. “The table of the Lord is contemptible.” Reading the Book of Malachi closely, something which comes across is that many of responses of the people of Israel were not words they actually spoke but testimonies of the state of their heart. Malachi, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, was demonstrating how actions have words and they speak a language that God fully understands. So, seeing as God is so communication-capable, it comes across as a stretch to ever come to see God as distant, cold or deaf except you don’t know Him. It also makes it extremely difficult for anyone pushing the narrative of a distant God to prove it. Again, Titus 2:11 or John 3:16 are adequate references. Furthermore, any number of people’s negative experiences of the church as an organization cannot stand as a repudiation of God as unmoving and unfeeling. Not knowing how someone feels does not mean they lack feeling.
In the Old Testament, the prescribed way for people to reach God was through sacrifices of animals by priests. As is consistent in human history, bad actors do present from time to time. God was clear in this regard: He would not accept sacrifices of feeble animals, and He would not accept anything from these bad actors. The simple meaning in today’s world is that God will not accept feeble works – not fake kindness, not pretend goodness, not speaking differently about someone to their face than what you do when they are absent and certainly not fake love for Him. Looking closely at the eight verse of Malachi chapter 1, something deeper is found: the acknowledgement by God that ill health and sickness exists. This is not the first time in the Bible but it illustrates multitudes. Specifically, that God is not blind and He is not deaf to the issues that exist on Earth. Of course, this is rightfully a tender issue for many but before we begin to cast aspersions about God’s motives or any indifference we perceive from Him to our hurt, it is very important that we at least get to know Him first.
Christianity has never been intended by God to be the subject of man’s own definitions. He alone gets to decide what Christianity is or isn’t. That is not to suggest that God is somewhere writing amendments to His laws. No! His laws are everlasting and they are not grievous. Which brings us again to the consistency of who He is. I don’t know about you, but I know how I am wont to changing my mind about something or other over and again. Yet, for all of time, God has been, is and will be content with being one thing and not the other. Amazing. More from verse eight: in bringing in the comparison of how we treat important people in our lives, we are shown how our human value system can be approximated to help put into context our relationship with God. In other words, if you would do X for your banker, what would you do for Him?
As a matter of fact, God does not drop His standards for anyone. He is not a respecter of persons. There are no double standards and no partiality with Him. He will not punish the unrepentant sin of Esau and turn a blind eye to the unrepentant sin of someone else. God doesn’t mince words: He will only accept a pure offering. He will only accept a life that is ready to make the sacrifices needed to become pure – not pure by human standards as judged by human eyes but pure in heart. In Matthew 5:8, Jesus Christ is unequivocal that the pure in heart are blessed because their reward is that they will see God.
For me, verse fourteen is everything. A number of things are made clear here: if you have something good to give to God but you hold it back and instead give something inferior, you are a deceiver and you are cursed to also not enjoy God’s best. The contrast here is that God had a Son (and He still has Him) and He didn’t hold Him back but instead gave to us His best and only. The underlying meaning is that God will not expect something from you which He has not done Himself. What is something of value to you? Something of value which you can give to God is your life. You can make the choice today to become a Christian (on paper, by belief and by action) or you can make the choice to become a more consistent Christian or you can make the choice to stand firm in your Christianity – to be perfect and entire, wanting nothing but Him. There are levels to this and time to grow is necessary.
For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts.
Malachi 1 vs 11
God is a God of nations – not just of Israel and not just of Malachi. He is a God of nations. He wants that. He’s seen it and said it. He sees room for you and I in His family. He is a worthy God because He just is. He is also a worthy God because our individual worth originates and is bound up in Him.
Be blessed.
That Christian Next Door 