August 11, 2024

Malachi 3.6, 7 (NIV)

“I the Lord do not change. . . Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty.

Our Father is relentlessly in pursuit of his children. He has called us home with his word, paved the path with his blood, and is longing for our arrival.*

I often thought I was the only Christian in my high school. (I wasn’t.) Along with that misapprehension, I liked to delude myself that since I was better than everyone else, I was good enough. Malachi prophesied to the people of Jerusalem who were a lot like I was. If you asked them, they would say that they had not left the Lord. They weren’t like the generations before who sacrificed their children to idols. Why should they respond to the call for repentance when they weren’t even aware of their sin?

The people may have gotten the idea that God was getting soft on sin, but it was only his covenant with Abraham that stood between them and judgment. While they had abandoned God’s purpose, God never lost sight of his plan. He was as much an enemy to sin as he ever was* and they were going to get a personal demonstration of how he deals with sinners if they didn’t return to him. 

Remember the old story of the couple riding in a car? She reminds him wistfully of their courting days when they used to sit close together in the car, and he says, “I haven’t moved.” God is still there, sitting in the driver’s seat, waiting for us to scoot back over close to his side. It was our choice to move away and it is our choice to return. With his call to repentance, he promises His favor if we accept His grace in return.*

Grace must be received, and no irresistible force from God will be exerted upon the individual . . . to do the receiving. God will, and does, knock – and continues to knock and to call – through the Scriptures, the providences and situations of life.*