Seventh Day Baptist
Christian Education Council
PO BOX 1678
Janesville, WI 53547
From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts. But you say, ‘How shall we return?’ Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the LORD of hosts. Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the LORD of hosts.
“Your words have been hard against me, says the LORD. But you say, ‘How have we spoken against you?’ You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the LORD of hosts? And now we call the arrogant blessed. Evildoers not only prosper but they put God to the test and they escape.’”
Then those who feared the LORD spoke with one another. The LORD paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the LORD and esteemed his name. “They shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.
(ESV)
—Malachi 3:7-18
by: Gabrielle Watt.
God calls out His people in this passage. They selfishly disobeyed Him, they stole from Him, and they questioned if it was worth it to serve God. How stingy and arrogant could they be? Still, with all this, He wanted to be their God and show them compassion and love. God said, “Return to me and I will return to you” (v.7). It is explained that with obedience comes abundance and blessings. It can be easy, like Israel did, to lose sight of why we obey God and do our own thing, especially when it looks like others are getting away with it. Why do we obey God?
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