“Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty. (Malachi 3:7b)
Do you ever feel far from God? Like He has forgotten you? Do you ever feel spiritually empty? Our relationship to God, our closeness, our spiritual fullness, can vary from overflowing to emptiness. What is going on? What is wrong?
The book of Malachi speaks to this spiritual emptiness. Malachi is the very last book in the Old Testament; written to the Jewish people who had returned to Jerusalem from their literal exile to Babylon, but who are spiritually still in exile. In fact, God tells these Jewish people “Yes, I have already cursed you, because you have not set your heart to honor me” (Malachi 2:2). In other words, their religion was all show and outward signs. This is extremely distressing news to a person who calls him or herself a believer. A statement like this from God reveals a disparity between what we say and what is in our hearts, which is what causes this spiritual distance from God.
Malachi goes on to tell us what God is looking for.
“My covenant was with him (Levi), a covenant of life and peace, and I gave them to him; this called for reverence, and he revered me and stood in awe of my name. True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many from sin. (Malachi 2:5-6).
And then Malachi tells us what God is seeing at that time, the disparities between what God wants and what is actually happening:
- Disobedience: “…you have not followed my ways but have shown partiality in matters of the law.” (Malachi 2:9)
- Unfaithfulness: “Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the LORD loves, by marrying the daughter of a foreign god.” (Malachi 2:11)
- Hypocrisy: “You have wearied the LORD with your words.” (Malachi 2:17)
Malachi was a prophet, the last prophet to prophesy in the Old Testament. God, speaking through Malachi, says in Malachi 3:7 “See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me.” He is looking back to Isaiah 40:1-11, and he is prophesying about John the Baptist who will begin his ministry 400 years later: “In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’ This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: ‘A voice of one calling in the wilderness, “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.”’” (Matthew 3:1-3).
God gives Malachi a strong message for us. He says in Malachi 3:5 – “’So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers, and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,’ says the Lord Almighty.”
God speaks of his character in Malachi 3:6, referring to the covenant promise he has made to the faithful in Jeremiah 31:31-34– “I the LORD do not change.”
And then God gives us a promise, a promise that we can count on- “’Return to me and I will return to you’, says the LORD Almighty.”
It’s never too late, until it is. Don’t wait!
In Christ,
Judy
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