Malachi 1, 1 Peter 4

(Malachi 1)

Malachi certainly jumps out of the gates with some bold accusations on God’s children, and by direct implication, us. So many times we offer our “second best” to God as worship, sacrifice, efforts, and life. As I look at verse 7, I saw something I never noticed before. It says, “ (7) You place defiled food on my altar. 
But you ask, 'How have we defiled you?' By saying that the LORD's table is contemptible. (8) When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled or diseased animals, is that not wrong?

God certainly draws light to the low level of sacrifice the priests were bringing to the alter table, he reminds us in verse 9 that they would never bring such a poor offering to worldly leaders and authorities in their lives, but they still brought them to their God.

But look at what he says, “You place defiled food on my alter” But you ask, “ How have we defiled you?”

Yes, we see that. But look what’s next in what they have said: “By saying that the Lord’s table is contemptible.’

They are indicting themselves by their own accusation. They know, in advance, exactly their hypocrisy. Geeze, this sounds just like us when we say we should live a certain way as believers and yet don’t. We spend all our time figuring out what is the way we should live in Christ, then don’t do it. How long can we live like this? This is an uncomfortable thought for me, but must be addressed. I think we should take notice to this accusation, the problem was not just what they did wrong, but also in what they acknowledged before they did it.

God, bring to light in our lives the area in which we condemn, yet live the same way. Help us God to get passed the sacrifice and get to the heart of the sacrifice.

(1 Peter 4)

During our small group conversation Sunday evening we discussed briefly the question: “What exists in my life that is polarizing to others who might be far from Christ?” The heart of the question is to discover what things are in our lives that might turn seekers away from God. I think when this happens, we have to take a long, hard look at whether they are seeing a pure image of Christ, or a poor image of us and our religiousness. I'm not talking about how we can pretend to have it all together. I'm talking about how we TRULY invite Christ to shine through in our lives.

Peter made me think of this today in verses 12 and 13 when he said, “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.”

We have a lot of claims in our lives as believers. We claim that the joy of the Lord is our strength. We claim that Christ not only gives us life, but life to the fullest. We claim that we rejoice in our sufferings. And yet, do we live like it? Too many times I’ve heard skeptics and critics of faith look at a believers life and they would argue they don’t see joy, contentment, fulfillment, peace, or a number of other things we claim. Bottom line, they don’t believe that is the result of a faith life. All they see is the stuff they really like in life they have to give up. Doesn’t sound like much of a full life to them.

So when we have struggles and we cannot rejoice. When we are down and do not experience joy in our faith. We must take great issue with finding out where is that coming from that we might live under the Grace of God’s design.

May we do business with God and find the reason why. May we let go of our selfishness to have things our way (which is probably a majority of why we’re not at peace, joyful, or content). May we remember that while He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, it is us who is ever changing. It’s not God, it’s us.

Father, help us to find complete peace, joy, contentment, satisfaction, fulfillment, direction, leading, and love in you. Help us to deny ourselves and keep us from infiltrating the image of Christ that we portray with our own flesh. May you be glorified in spite of us and through us.