September 14, 2017 THE LORD GAVE ATTENTION
Malachi 3:16, 4:2 “Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord gave attention and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the Lord and who esteem His name.”
“But for you who fear My name the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.”
Malachi, is an Old Testament book, and the theme is about God’s love for His people. The Old Covenant records God’s dealing with His people in the natural, or physical, and it is a picture, or type of what is to come in the New Covenant. The physical blessings that came to those in the Old Covenant are pictures of the spiritual blessings that would come to those living under the New Covenant that Jesus inaugurated. (This does not mean that those under the New Covenant will not experience physical blessings.) By reading the Old Covenant, we get a good view and understanding of the heart of God for His people-and that has never changed. In the verses for today, we find that God ‘pays attention’ to those who fear Him. This fear is not what we think when we hear the word ‘fear,’ but refers to honoring, respecting, and acknowledging God with the idea of obeying Him because He is God. Note that some of the people “spoke to one another” about the Lord-“and the Lord gave attention and heard it.” The obvious question for us is whether or not we find ourselves talking about the Lord with others; this is a crucial question because it is true that we talk about what is important to us. Do we ‘esteem’ (respect and admire) the name of the Lord? Great blessing come to those who fear the Lord and esteem His name. When we begin to see and experience God in a personal way, we find that we are changed from the inside out; old desires and old thought patterns are replaced with new desires and our thinking process is redeemed, or made new. Knowing and experiencing God brings about in us a sense of wellness and being whole, or complete, and a realization that He is more than sufficient for life. Apart from God, we are imprisoned to ourselves, in bondage to sin and darkness, and without genuine hope, but it is God’s desire for us to be free. The freedom that comes with knowing God has no bounds and is available to all believers. Galatians 5:1 tells us “It was for freedom that Christ set us free.” The picture of calves skipping about when let out of the stall is a beautiful picture of the freedom that God brings about in us. I have actually seen calves being let out of a stall, and they do indeed ‘skip about’ once they are out of the stall! Living in the stall is not what God has in mind for His children. God sent His Son to pay the price of our sin in order that we might be saved and set free from all that binds us and keeps us imprisoned. The one thing in life in life that makes us whole and sets us free is knowing and experiencing God in a personal way-it’s just that simple! As we live our life from day to day, may we indeed “skip about like calves from the stall.”
Psalm 145:19 “He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He will also hear their cry and will save them.”
Romans 15:13 “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Blessings,
Buddy
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