“This is the message that the Lord gave to Israel through the prophet Malachi. “I have always loved you,” says the Lord. But you retort, “Really? How have you loved us?” And the Lord replies, “This is how I showed my love for you: I loved your ancestor Jacob, but I rejected his brother, Esau, and devastated his hill country. I turned Esau’s inheritance into a desert for jackals.” Esau’s descendants in Edom may say, “We have been shattered, but we will rebuild the ruins.” But the Lord of Heaven’s Armies replies, “They may try to rebuild, but I will demolish them again. Their country will be known as ‘The Land of Wickedness,’ and their people will be called ‘The People with Whom the Lord Is Forever Angry.’ When you see the destruction for yourselves, you will say, ‘Truly, the Lord’s greatness reaches far beyond Israel’s borders!’””
Malachi 1:1-5 NLT
When God calls us to love him, we should respond with love for him. Yet often we do not. This is true even to this day with many Christians sitting in the bizarre cognitive dissonance of loving God sincerely and blaming him fully. God appreciates sincerity in love but it is not enough. He wants the full expression of our love. His response to Israel when she calls on him to prove his love should be elucidating for us. He responds by pointing them toward comparison and contrast. His point is that it should be obvious how he loves them and if it is not, it is because they are inward focus and painfully unaware of the obvious difference in relationship. They don’t feel blessed because they don’t see what it is like to live outside of God’s blessings like their Edomite cousins. If they would simply stop looking at their feelings for confirmation of the truth, then they would see their relationship with God for what it truly is. They would understand how his graciousness has been kind to them just by opening their eyes.
JOSH McGARY. COM 