God is worthy but worthy of what exactly? Revelations 7 vs 12 puts it this way: “..blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.” God is worthy, but not only because we say He is. An impression of His worth is unavoidable if we come in contact with Him. His worth is displayed in His character and by His actions, both of which are in full display in the world at large and in the Bible for any keen observer to see. No matter who you are, what your history is, your degree of belief or unbelief in God and every other thing about you – no matter all that – God is prepared for you if you come to Him. You simply cannot take Him by surprise.
The Book of Malachi touches on many topics and themes but one topic it specifically touches on is God’s eternal preparedness, which is God’s ability to be ready for all eventualities that will turn up and to be to us who He has to be to us through ever step of our life’s journey. Chapter 3 of the Book of Malachi will be the main text of reference for this review.
So, what do you get when you have a person with all conquering love and uncompromising consistency? Well, such a state is beyond human performance or comprehension, but it makes sense that you would likely get a person who is eternally ready to respond evenly and appropriately to everything and everyone that comes their way. This is one of my closest approximations of who God is but I can assure you that He is so much better. When you start to throw in His mercy, goodness and compassion, all of which are new every morning, into the mix, you would just have to be awed by it all.
Malachi 3 begins with a plan. “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me…” verse 1 reads. It is made clear here from the onset that God who created Heaven and Earth doesn’t get to skip steps. Just like it applies to you and I, prior preparation prevents poor performance. The question to ask then is: when has God ever performed poorly? I struggle to come up with one example in the Bible of God coming short and I would go as far as saying that any breakdown in the flow of things in any interaction between God and a human being is always as a result of human fault. Exceptions to this do exist but key to these exceptions is discernment of God’s plan. Sometimes, we can have a timeline that is drastically different from God’s and we can lose faith because of this difference and in so doing inadvertently put our agreed plan with God in jeopardy. Such a failure is not a reflection on who God is but it can reflect who we are or who we are yet to be.
The verses in Malachi 3 from 1 to 6 speak towards God’s plans for a future that is still to be fully fulfilled. It involves the second coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who is pictured as a purifier and a purge, working to cleanse His people (you and I included) from their sin (or, prepare them for a life without sin). In verse 4, His desired result is a pleasant offering of sweet smelling savor from us, His people. Again, it is clear, that even just in order to make things right again, God doesn’t just snap His finger and it is miraculously done. Preparation still has to be done. Jesus Christ still had to obey the Father, He had to humble himself for servanthood and to death on the cross and He had to take all the necessary steps that culminated in His first coming. There is a second coming only because there was a first.
God is a God of preparation. To put it another way, it is in His DNA. With that in mind, I struggle to see how anyone can become a child of God or claim to be a child of God and not have this same mind of preparation that is in God and that was in Christ Jesus while He was on Earth. After all, preparation is key to salvation and it is key to any kind of growth with God. The heart that receives God’s word and keeps it can only be good soil. It can’t be surrounded by thorns or be one that is trampled everyday by passersby. It must be prepared and guarded. It must be good soil. In much the same way, all Christians’ assignments are given out based on the preparation they have had in the quiet place with God. No one that God calls to an assignment is less than that assignment.
Back to Malachi. In verse 7, God bemoans the distance that has emerged between the people of the time and Him. “Ye are gone away from my ordinances, and have not kept them” He says. “Return unto me, and I will return unto you” He continues. When I read this verse, the only uncertainty that came across was on the human side. Will they or will they not return? God’s actions whichever way it goes are settled. The truth of the whole thing also is that God is desirous for you and I, but we must have a posture of search for Him. Crucially, if we don’t see Him, it doesn’t necessarily mean He’s not there. A look at the life of Jesus shows that at the cross it felt like the Father had forsaken Him and left Him alone. The whole thing was painful but it was part of the plan. Sometimes, you may not see God, but that’s not because He’s not there. First, how wholehearted is your search for Him? If this is ok, then secondly, how well do you know the plan? The determining factor in whether or not we encounter God as He desires is and will always be us. Verse 1 of Malachi 3 is clear: “the Lord, whom you seek…”
Imagine this: you are about to go on a car journey with a friend and this friend tells you that they are ready to go but you haven’t said or done anything yet. Who is waiting on who? In verse 6, God touts one of His credentials. “I change not”, He says before going on to further explain that that is why His people are not consumed. This unchanging nature means that once prepared God is eternally prepared. It means that once the decision to make man was made, everything that surrounds that decision was already in place and finalized. It means that God has answers and solutions ready for those who are righteous and for those who are sinful and that He is prepared to not change (“I am the Lord” He says or, in other words, this is who I am and I am happy to be this). He doesn’t change so He is alive now and will always be so. He is prepared for you and I now and He will always be so. When circumstances in our lives change, He will not change. We are not on the Christian journey alone. His love is enough. His plans are enough. He is enough.
“Bring all the tithes….and prove me now herewith” the Lord boldly asserts as if to say ‘I’m prepared’. Verse 16 describes how the Lord put His ear to those who feared Him and spoke of His goodness and how a book of remembrance was written on their behalf. Verse 18 reads “And they shall be mine saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.” That sounds an awful lot like our Heavenly Father making plans and putting preparations in place for us. In the Book of John 14 vs 2, Jesus Christ, while on Earth, also spoke of His preparation of a place for us. This was not some snap of the finger movie magic moment. This was an unforced, deliberate choice of words spoken to people He felt safe around.
God feels every tug on His heart. He feels every faithful obedience. He is prepared for every tug on His heart and for every faithful obedience. He knew the end from the beginning and the beginning from the end. The woman healed from the issue of blood in the Book of Luke chapter 8 was always going to be healed because God is always prepared for every tug on His heart. The ten lepers cleansed in the Book of Luke chapter 17 did not have Jesus’s healing hands laid on them. They simply went about showing themselves to the priests as they were instructed to do by Jesus Christ and in doing so they were cleansed. God was prepared for their faithful obedience.
In the act of creation in the Book of Genesis chapter 1, in preparation for what was to come, the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. That same Spirit of God, Holy Spirit, as He is respectfully and affectionately known, is always a critical part of everything that God wants to do. In fact, you could refer to Him as the Spirit of Preparedness. Holy Spirit is also God. Have you fallen out of sync with God and His plans for your life? This may not be exactly due to sin. Maybe you just don’t meditate or pray or read the Word as much as you should. Well, you can always change that dynamic. Speak today to God along these lines…
“Holy Father, I thank you for how you have known me before I was formed in my mother’s belly and before I came out of the womb. Holy Spirit, you love me and I love you. You are God. Father, I ask that you renew a right spirit within me. I don’t want to be out of sync with you. Grant me your Spirit of Preparedness, in the name of Jesus Christ. Thank you God, creator of Heaven and Earth. I put my faith in You.
Be blessed.
That Christian Next Door 