Malachi 1-4; Psalm 150
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Malachi is a prophet that came along years after the return to
Jerusalem, after the Jews had grown deeper in their faith and had obeyed God by
rebuilding His Temple. But as
years went by even though they kept their religious rituals, they began losing
their relationship with God again.
God tells them that they are showing contempt for His name by
offering defiled sacrifices.
Instead of bringing their best to God, they just bring whatever is
convenient. God says to them not
to “light useless fires on my altar!”
He didn’t want their offerings when He knew they had a bad attitude,
when they were holding back their best for themselves, and when they were
thinking, “What a burden!”
God also tells them they are robbing Him in their tithes and
offerings. (Tithe, by the way, is
a tenth of your income.) Everything
belongs to Him already anyway.
When we do not give back, it is as if we are robbing God. He says, “Bring the whole tithe into
the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘and see if I will
not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you
will not have room enough for it.”
I love that verse. It
is, to my knowledge, the only place in the Bible where God actually says to
test Him. And all these messages
God sent through Malachi certainly apply to us still today. He wants our best, our all. When we offer less than that or give
begrudgingly while holding tight to what we don’t want to sacrifice, it is
useless to God. He says that if we
will just let go, have faith in Him, and give back to God what He has blessed
us with already, He will bless us more than we can even imagine in return. He says – try me and just wait and
see!
I know my husband and I can attest to God’s faithfulness in
this. When we first got married
and we were not making very much money combined with everything costing too
much money, we struggled with holding on to everything we could. There were times when we felt like we
couldn’t afford to tithe or give.
When we started truly trusting God in this and we made tithing a
non-negotiable, we began being blessed in ways we couldn’t explain. Slowly we began giving more and more on
top of our tithe, and God has provided and blessed faithfully. Instead of holding on to control remember
that it is all His. Don’t rob God
and don’t be robbed of the blessings He has in store when you put your trust in
Him.
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