Author: Christine Wyrtzen

Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD Almighty. Yet you say, “How shall we return?” Malachi 3:7

The Israelites had no idea that they had lost their way. They feigned innocence. They were adamant that they hadn’t turned away from God. After all, they’d been going to the temple to all the services. How then, could they return? J. Vernon McGee says, “Ritualism was substituted for reality. Pageantry was substituted for power. The aesthetic was substituted for the spiritual, and form for feeling. They knew the vocabulary, but the power of God was gone. They were satisfied with a tasteless morality. They followed the rules and felt that everything was all right.” The truth is, they were far from God and they didn’t even know it.

The disintegration of a relationship happens slowly. I become so accustomed to having the other person around that laziness creeps in. I no longer put my best foot forward. Someone I love gets a grunt for a greeting. Years go by on automatic pilot and without careful assessment; I can believe everything is okay. It isn’t until one person wakes up and says, “I don’t feel close to you anymore”, that the spell is broken.

If it can happen in marriage and friendships, it can happen to my relationship with God. If I were quiet before God so that I could hear Him speak, would He say, “You don’t feel close to me anymore, do you?” I remember when His message was even more penetrating. It was 1994. “Christine, you’ve never felt close to me, have you?” I listened. I understood that my life had been all about rituals and pageantry. Because of that, I was profoundly lonely.

I set out to change my life and dare to believe that God was to be experienced, not just studied. I took a vacation from ‘all forms of doing’ in the church so that I could begin to find God on a real level. I had become such a performer that I couldn’t separate who I was from what I did. I sought God’s heart and asked Him to help me understand my own. Life has never been the same. My being vibrates with wonder at the sound of His voice. I wonder how I lasted so long without the joy of knowing Him. If there is anything overwhelming me today, I remember to hush my spirit, then look up.

I want to be fully alive to You in more ways than I am today. Amen

“I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.
Malachi 3:6

God does not change. What He loves today, He has always loved. What He feels passionate about this morning has been His passion since the beginning of time. What He hates at this very moment, He has always hated.

He loved David’s tender heart. He, likewise, loves mine when my heart is tender. He hated the sins of Israel when they turned a blind eye to the oppressed; the widows and the orphans. He hates it today when I pass them by without giving them a second thought.

God is clear about who He is. He does not subject me, His child, to guesswork where He is concerned. Scripture presents an unambiguous picture of His character and His personality. That makes me feel secure. I never have to wonder how He feels about me. I don’t have to hide, fearing that I have done something to upset Him.

I grew up in an atmosphere of stoicism. My parents were not generous with their thoughts, their love, or their praise. My sister and I seldom knew if we made them happy. On the flip side, we sometimes felt their displeasure, yet they would not tell us what we had done to cause them to withdraw. We had to keep guessing. I remember this dynamic well, even back to age four. I rarely walked into a room confidently. I peeked around the corner first, trying to assess whether those in the room appeared happy to see me. If they did, I entered with a measure of confidence. If their faces showed nothing, I crept in quietly and played without disturbing them.

God is still healing me of my fear and reserve. It has been a divine work of grace only because God, my perfect Father, is giving me a new experience. I’m learning what it’s like to be a daughter under His care. Because He is unchangeable, my heart can be at peace. I can trust in His love. And, when I wound Him and offer a sincere apology, I anticipate a full restoration. God is open and engaging. Because He is, I can be.

Every time I read about You in the stories of the Bible, my heart has more confidence because my picture of You enlarges. Thank You for not being fickle. Your face will never change on me. Amen

“See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly, the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the LORD Almighty. Malachi 3:1

God announces that He is going to give the Jewish people what they want ~ a visitation from the messenger of the Covenant, who is Jesus.  But before He can come, a period of preparation is necessary.  We know that John the Baptist will one day be born and will tell the people to repent. Jesus, the messenger of the covenant, will then be able to come to fulfill the words of Leviticus 26.  “I will set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people. I am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright.”

But here’s the thing.  This has not yet happened!  This event was not fulfilled in the first coming of Jesus, nor will it be in even the second, but in that future time when He will come and reign, live among His people, and they will acknowledge Him as their Lord.

Beyond timelines, the important point is this: Before Jesus can come and dwell with them, with us, or with me personally, there must be a preparation.  The message of the scriptures is consistent and unwavering.  Repent – and Jesus will come to dwell.  Repent – and you can have a Savior. Repent – and He will call you His own. Repent – and He will break the bands of your yoke. Repent. Repent. Repent.

This is either a forgotten word or a mis-used one. How cunning of our enemy to see to both ends.  Satan knows that repentance is critical to heaven’s agenda.  It is the key to powerful prayer.  It is the key to our blessing.  It is the key to a visitation of the Spirit of God. And what a stunning face it wears.  A repentant saint is one who is sober, humble, unassuming, thoughtful, yielded to One greater than himself- and though that child of God is unaware – his countenance bears the first glimmer of radiant glory.

When I am childish and proud, repentance is never attractive.  Plant my steps in humility.  Amen

You have wearied the LORD with your words.”How have we wearied him?” you ask.  By saying,”All who do evil are good in the  eyes of the LORD, and he is pleased with them.” Malachi 2:17

The Jews of Malachi’s day were distraught. They believed they deserved God’s blessing.  They were waiting for the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah, made one hundred years earlier, to come to pass.  Instead, they struggled.

Simultaneously, they watched the evil around them prosper. They threw up their hands and said, “Why do good? The ones who do evil are the ones who get rewarded anyway.”  With this kind of thinking, God accuses them of altering morality.  They wanted the benefits of God’s blessing without taking on any responsibility of addressing inner holiness.  Instead, they set out to fulfill ritual and ceremonial duties, hoping to achieve the favor of God on a bargain basis.

It’s easy to become obsessed with unfairness.  Take a trip along the coastline of Florida’s playground and you’ll be confronted with affluence. Some spend their lives tinkering with their yachts, cruising out to border islands, and enjoying the best golf courses.  For any who have to save for years to take a family vacation, this can grate.

Because all I’ve known is life on earth, I can begin to believe that this is what it’s all about. I start trying to assess how the rich have gotten so far ahead of me.  What have they done to achieve such a lifestyle? Maybe I should follow their example.  Now, I am in a dilemma with four choices in front of me.

1.) I’ll cast my obedience to Christ to the wind and embrace pathetic priorities.

2.) I’ll nurse my anger with God. “I’m living for you, Lord…and I so little blessing?” 3.) I’ll conclude that I must earn God’s favor by ‘doing the right things.’ My Christianity will turn pious.

4.) I’ll understand that the wicked prosper but for a speck of time compared to the expanse of eternity in front of them.

Jesus wasn’t rewarded while on earth for living a righteous life.  Just the opposite.  He was hated for His holiness.  His very choices exposed the morality of the day.  Ah, but where is He now? Enthroned in glory.  May I not sell my inheritance for a piece of silver.

Life seemed unending when I was younger. I’m learning that it passes with great speed.  Father, I follow Jesus.  I re-cement my resolve. Amen

 

Has not the LORD made them one? And why one? Because He was seeking godly offspring. Malachi 2:15

To try to alter what God has put in place is always disastrous. If we had the power to change certain elements of creation, would we dare? Would we tamper with a tree and change its growing cycle? Would we try to make it shed leaves in the spring instead of fall? To do so would unravel the rhythms of the earth.

Malachi comments on God’s institution of marriage. He made a husband and wife one because their offspring would prosper by having one set of parents. No wonder so many children flounder. One cause for it is the reckless way we have altered God’s order by ripping apart what He blessed.

When God joins a man and a woman in matrimony, the union is set in stone – just as the creation of a tree. It can’t be undone without tearing, destroying, and rendering mortal harm. I think about the phrases I’ve heard from men and women who are living through the pain of separation and divorce. “Our home is being torn apart.” “The children don’t know who to trust.” “My security has been shaken to the core.”

There is an ache in my heart as I write this morning. Because of the many notes I’ve received the past few weeks, I have peeked into your lives. Many of you are on the other side of divorce. Others of you are in union with ungodly Christian mates. Marriage feels more like a trap than a blessing. This is not what God had in mind. In Eden, God joined together two people; each of whom loved Him and walked with Him in perfect fellowship. This is what made the union perfect! If I love God more than I love myself and my life is an expression of His Spirit (and the same is true of my husband), then our marriage will bring us both joy.  We feel God’s heart beating, declaring what He has spoken since His initial days of creation.  ‘It is good.’

How do we pray for an ailing marriage? That each of us would live with a childlike spirit in the presence of God so that we could be healed.

Dissonance with You brings disharmony in my marriage.  Draw my husband and me to Your embrace. Amen

Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Psalm 24:7

God speaks to His people and joyfully commands them to lift their heads. He has gone out to battle on their behalf and has come back victorious.

Have you been shamed? No matter what the context, the experience is gut wrenching. Every part of your being feels it. Your emotions plummet. Your mind runs tapes of the accusations. Your body language turns inward.

I recall when Joseph told the cupbearer, who was falsely accused, that Pharaoh would lift up his head in three days. The Hebrew idiom paints a beautiful picture. It is when the one shrunken in shame is restored to his position of power. It’s used other places in scripture that expand its beauty.

King David, betrayed by his son Absalom, on the run with just the clothes on his back, turns to God for vindication. He climbed the Mount of Olives, covered up his head, wept, and said, “You, Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high.” Psalm 3:3 As king, he could have formed an army, or at least a posse, to get back his throne. He abandoned all ideas of conniving, of battling, and of manipulating. He recognized that God was his rescuer.

Who has stripped you of your honor? How long have you been brought low? Have you accepted your fate and given up all hope of restoration? Perhaps you even abandoned prayer.

I hope you’re not a fighter who has vowed to take revenge and battle it out. Perhaps you intend to get back what you’ve lost no matter who has to pay. You’ve turned aside from God as your Redeemer and have taken up your own cause.

The hardest thing for any of us to do when betrayed is to wait on God to move. He always will. We just don’t know when. In the meantime, the waiting is never wasted. God draws near, comforts, teaches us what He suffered under the same circumstances.  He pours out treasure upon treasure that is only found in the darkness. He is, and will be, the lifter of our heads.

Satan offered you a way out of waiting when he offered you the kingdoms of the world in exchange for worship. Thank you for not caving. Everything would have been lost. So teach me to wait! Amen

You flood the Lord’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, “Why?” It is because the LORD is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her.  Malachi 2:13-14

The Jewish women, discarded by their husbands in favor of foreign women, were weeping at the altar. The men had regarded them as worthless.  As covenant partners, the women had been spurned. The men’s hearts were calloused toward the most important person in their lives.  But ironically, the men then went to the same altar to make their sacrifices to God. God’s response was clear.  Their offerings were unacceptable.

Shouldn’t it have been obvious to the husbands why God turned a deaf ear? It wasn’t. Incredulously, they asked, “Why?”

One Puritan commentator puts it sharply.

• “She whom you wronged was the companion of those earlier and brighter days, when in the bloom of her young beauty she left her father’s house and shared your early struggles, and rejoiced in your later success; cheering you in its trials by her gentle ministry; and now, when the bloom of her youth has faded and the friends of her youth have gone, when her father and mother whom she left for you are in the grave, then you cruelly cast her off as a worn-out, worthless thing, and insult her holiest affections by putting an idolater and a heathen in her place.”

Altars, both public and private, are still being flooded with the tears of those betrayed. Many Christian men and women despise their covenant partners daily. Once outside their home, they are courteous and respectful to others.  They present one face to the public and another to their family.  No one would guess that this ‘nice person’ could be so cruel to the one who should get their very best. The truth is ~ “who you are at home is who you are!”

If one could discern the thoughts of many in the pew, one would hear the same question posed by the Jewish men.  “God, why are you silent toward me? What have I done?”  The answer is sitting next to them.  The weary and sad countenance of their mate tells the story.  May the sound of weeping at the altar come from those who have finally heard the voice of God calling them to repent and reconcile.

You are My Father. You are the One who instituted the most sacred of covenants.  Marriage.  Show me how to honor my husband the way You honor me daily in your Covenant relationship with me. Amen

As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the LORD cut off from the tents of Jacob everyone who awakes and answers. Malachi 2:12

God is never so impressed with someone’s stature in life that He is willing to remove the laws of sowing and reaping.  The reference to ‘everyone who awakes and answers’ is speaking to the teacher and the student, the preacher and the parishioner, the priest and the common man.  The message is clear ~ whoever sins against God, regardless of their position, will bear the pain of broken fellowship and painful consequences until there is repentance.

This is good news and bad news.

It is bad news for he who has achieved notoriety. Anyone who has felt the applause of men and lived for a time in the spotlight will tell you that great favor can be an opiate. It distorts reality.  It deceives a man into believing that he is different from everyone else. He assumes that he is set apart for greatness and exempt from the rules of everyone else.  The man will begin to get careless.  His morality will slip.  His sterling character qualities will tarnish. His house will erode and what once looked pristine will bear signs of peeling paint and miserable faces.

It is good news for any who believe the truth that God is just.  He rewards the man or woman in obscurity that chooses to do the righteous thing without achieving the recognition of anyone.  That person can also know firsthand the pleasure of feeling one’s favor on his back; the warmth of Abba’s smile. While he may have to live in this world for a time and deal with the inequities of the class distinction, he is also invited to live within the reality of God’s kingdom where the foot of the cross is on level ground.

If I am God’s child, regardless of who I am here, I will respond to God’s chastening and make my way home.  J. Vernon McGee says it well, “A true child of God will not continue to live in sin. That is the reason the prodigal son down there in the pigpen finally came to himself and said, “I will arise and go to my father…” (Luke 15:18). He was a son and not a pig.  He had the nature of his father.  Only pigs love the pigpen.  A son will wake up and get out of there.”

I stand before You as a solitary woman. You do not know me as anyone’s wife, mother, friend, or daughter. I am simply a woman that You love. I take responsibility for my actions and the contents of my heart. Amen

Judah has broken faith. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah is marrying the daughter of a foreign god. Malachi 2:11

The men in Israel are doing it again.  Throughout history, they spurned God’s instructions on the issue of marriage.  He warned them of the pain they would suffer if they married outside of their faith.  Their spirit would never be at rest. Their homes would be a place where the worship of two gods collided.  Husbands and wives would be at odds over nearly every decision.  Nonetheless, the Jewish men in Malachi’s day discarded their Jewish wives in order to marry the foreigners who had captured their senses.

I don’t have to tell many of you what life is like in the home where a believer has walked down the aisle to unite with an unbeliever.  Though they went through the motions of lighting a unity candle, oneness has eluded them on many issues, the most important ones being issues of faith.  Unless God is merciful and that unbeliever comes to Christ, the pain in their home will be great.

How can one person who loves God more than anything in this world make critical decisions with someone whose priorities exclude God?  While one person prays to discern God’s will, the other bends to serve his flesh.  He will be more likely to pursue courses of action that further his career or cater to his senses.  He can’t help it.  He has no power inside to change his desires or harness his selfishness.

The voices of marital partners – pleading with each other to attend church and raise children God’s way – can be heard across our land.   The pain of disharmony is what causes many to cry themselves to sleep. The friction is unbearable but, nonetheless, for the many of God’s children living in at atmosphere of friction, God is giving grace by drawing close to the believing spouse 

God is not an ogre when He entrusts us with His precepts. Our flesh hates rules and upon hearing them, we desire to break them.  Satan has fooled us into believing that spurning rules brings great reward.  There can be euphoria when you feel like you’ve won against restrictions but God reminds us today that rules protect us from pain and make us free to soar on the narrow way.  They highlight the pathway that says, “Way to Internal Prosperity.”

Oh Father, many who read this are living in disharmony. They feel that it is too late. Wrap them in Your arms of comfort. May Your Spirit live powerfully in them – wooing their unbelieving partners to find You. You are merciful and long to write another ending to our stories. Amen