Today we close out the Old Testament.
It has been a long nine months going through the Old Testament. I love the Old
Testament. There are so many wonderful stories as well as so many heart
breaking stories. I love that throughout God gives hope in the darkest moments
of despair. Now for the next four hundred and some years God will be somewhat
silent as Israel waits for the coming Messiah. But he does not leave them
without a challenge to give fully to Him.
The entire book of Malachi is God challenging
the quality of the sacrifices and gifts brought before God. To be frank, their
gifts were not that great … “You have shown contempt by offering defiled
sacrifices on my altar.” (Malachi 1:7 NLT) … “You defile them by saying the altar
of the LORD deserves no respect. When you give blind animals as sacrifices, is
not that wrong?” (Malachi 1:7-8 NLT) … “How I wish one of you would shut the
Temple doors so that these worthless sacrifices could not be offered!” (Malachi
1:10 NLT) This is just a little sample of the strong words God brings against
Israel.
Let’s apply these thoughts from God to
our giving. What does it look like? Are we giving God our best or what is left?
Yesterday I had lunch with a very godly woman whose husband is barely hanging
onto life right now because of his health. She made the comment that when he
was healthy and involved in his day job that the school he worked for got the
best of him. How often does that scenario play out in your relationship with God?
How often do we let everything else come before our relationship with God and
when we get to Him, we are wiped out, barley giving Him any quality. As we turn
to the life saving mission of Jesus tomorrow, let’s contemplate our sacrifices
before God.
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