Hi, everyone. So. This is basically the first post towards a blog revival- because this blog has been inactive for a shamefully
long time, I know. But, Lord willing, I hope that the season I am in currently
will allow me to at least get it up and running again. I’ve felt Him gently
pushing me to start writing again, and although I’m not entirely sure why yet
(all I can think is that since He put the love of writing in me at a very young
age, perhaps I shouldn’t let it plateau), I will write if He tells me to write.
After all, I’ve missed the blogging world and my blogger friends rather a lot. Now
it’s just to settle in once more, find a weekly routine, and slip back into the
groove I’ve been out of for too long. I’m looking forward to it.
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The Bible says that you will find God if you seek Him, and
if you seek Him with your whole heart. (Jeremiah 29:13) It’s one of my
favourite verses from the Word of God, but to agree with it and then to
actually apply it are two different things. Maybe that sounds obvious- and yet,
I think those of us who know it or have maybe heard it regularly often find
ourselves simply nodding along, but not making more time to spend time doing
just that: seeking the King of kings. I’ve been strongly convicted of this very
thing in my own life this past month and a half, so much so that I asked Jesus
to forgive me for my on and off neglection of seeking Him during this year. And
dear reader, what a sweet thing it is to be told I’m forgiven and called back
into His arms. After all, drawing near to Him leads to Him drawing near to you,
and nothing could be better. (James 4:8)
So, I’m seeking Him, I’m praying, I’m pleading, I’m spending
time at His feet. I’m being refreshed by Him and at the same time I am asking
him questions, some that I could never bring before anyone else, some about the
future and where He wants me to be in days to come, some about how I can serve
Him better. I want my heart to be in His hands, responding readily to anything
He wants to do. I’m asking Him to show me what He wants me to be busy with, to
give me the diligence to do whatever He has for me to do, to guide me. Because,
you see, there could never be a more reliable or trustworthy Guide. (Psalm
48:14)
In consequence, as I’ve been falling back into the fulfilling
routine of truly searching His wisdom out, I’ve recently been in the book of
Malachi for the first time in a while, and I feel as if I really absorbed it more
properly this time. How wonderful it is that God can reveal new things again
and again from the same book or passage in the Bible! But anyways- I want to
speak about a part near the end of Malachi, the last few verses of chapter
three. The words really struck me as full of magnitude and strength, and I’ve
had it on my heart to share them here on my blog and to write about them.
Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another, and
the LORD listened and heard them; so a book of remembrance was written before
Him for those who fear the LORD and who meditate on His name. “They shall be
Mine,” says the LORD of hosts, “On that day that I make them my jewels. And I
will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.” Then you shall
again discern between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God
and one who does not serve Him. / Malachi 3:16-18, NKJV
When it speaks of those who feared the Lord and meditate on
His name, I feel it’s a reference to born-again believers- and since I am one,
I was uplifted by these verses. There were a few pointers that stood out to me
that I’d love to share with you. Although, honestly, there’s probably so much
more wisdom to glean from even such a small passage than what I felt I learned
from it, but that’s the beauty of reading the living and powerful Word of God.
But without waiting any longer, if you are also seeking the
Lord wholeheartedly, or even if you aren’t fully committed to doing that but
are curious to know if it would be worthwhile to, I hope you will find some
encouragement here in what the Lord says to His children.
Malachi
3 tells us…
1. He
listens to us.
“The LORD listened and heard them.”
Has it ever felt like no one hears you? Has it ever felt
like the Lord isn’t even listening to the cry of your heart? I know I have felt
that way before. I still do, sometimes. But each time, the Lord proves me
wrong. Even when I’m faithless, He remains faithful. (2 Timothy 2:13) Even if
we doubt, as we so often tend to do, the truth is that God hears our every
thought, knows our every need, feels our every pain and sees our every stumble. The verse that comes just
before the one from Jeremiah about seeking the Lord promises that He listens to us-
so we can be thoroughly assured that He does indeed hear us!
Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I
will listen to you. / Jeremiah 29:12, NKJV
The challenge for us is to be consistent in praying to the
Lord and calling upon Him. The more time we spend pursuing a relationship with
the Lord, the closer to Him we’ll find ourselves.
2. We are
remembered.
“A book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the
LORD and who meditate on HIS name.”
I believe that to feel acknowledged and loved are innate
desires of ours. How joyful can we be, then, to be able to know that the One
who reigns over everyone and everything, the Creator of the universe and our
Heavenly Father, remembers us, knows us inside out, and yet still loves us?
There is nothing else that can truly satisfy that hungriness for recognition or
wholesome love that is within us. The fact that the Lord remembers us, we who
are nothing but vapours (Psalm 62:9) without Him, can fill us with a sense of
worth that is only found by putting our identities in who Jesus Christ is.
(Colossians 3:3) When we love Him, revere Him and set our minds upon Him as a
response to Him loving us with perfect love, He says that we are remembered by
Him.
In Isaiah, God promises Zion (Israel) that He won’t forget them. But since
He has promised salvation to all who believe upon His Son, we can know that can
include us as well.
Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have
compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not
forget you. / Isaiah 49:15. NKJV
So, He has promised not to forget us. But even more
substantially, through Jesus Christ, those who believe receive a promise of an
eternal inheritance. What more than that could prove to us that He remembers
us?
And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new
covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the
first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the
eternal inheritance. / Hebrews 9:15, NKJV
3. We are
His and we are spared.
“They shall be Mine,” says the LORD of hosts.”
“On that day that I make them My jewels.”
“And I will spare them.”
Treasured is the word that comes to my mind when I
read God calling those who fear and love Him, “Mine” and “My jewels”. Again,
I’d like to remind you that His thoughts towards us can’t be numbered. He is
faithful to love us with an unwavering love; He is faithful to call us His own.
Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us,
that we should be called the children of God! / 1 John 3:1, NKJV
And then, Redeemed (one of my favourite words) is the
word that I feel fits when I read about Him sparing us- because we are spared
from a treacherous destination and spared from the end result of sin, we are made clean and we are forgiven. It is such a marvellous gift to be called His
and to be called to Him.
Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those
who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for
them. / Hebrews 7:25, NKJV
I don’t know about you, but from where I’m standing, being
treasured and redeemed instead of receiving what we actually deserved
(condemnation, hell, and death) is wondrous in its enormity! Praise the Lord!
4. He has
given us discernment.
“Then you shall again discern between the righteous and
the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him.”
Ah, last but not least. We need our eyes to be open to what
a gift having open eyes can be, if it can be put that way. When someone is born
again, God sends the Holy Spirit to remind them of the things He has taught
them, to help lead them in the way they should walk and to essentially build on
their spiritual conscience.
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will
send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance
all things that I said to you. / John 14:26, NKJV
And we are His witnesses to these things, and so also is
the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him. / Acts 5:32, NKJV
When we seek His wisdom and the power of the Holy Spirit, He
helps us to distinguish between what is wrong and right, what is true or false
and what or who honours Him and what or who doesn’t. We need to rely fully on
Him for these insights, as we can’t trust ourselves to know the difference or
want to know the difference without Him. The Holy Spirit convicts us when we
are sinning and aids us in glorifying the Lord, and is therefore indispensable
to a Christian. Thankfully, as we talked about earlier, God listens to us and
we can ask daily for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. How wonderful is that!
Not only are we heard, remembered, His jewels, and spared from ruin- we also
have access to His wisdom!
In
conclusion…
So, although this has been really long (I commend you for
bearing with me if you’ve made it this far. It seemed too hard to try shorten
it when I’ve been really mulling this over and had many thoughts on it, and
also when this is the first emergence of mine back into the writing world in
quite some time. I’ll find a writing rhythm again sometime in the future 😉
) I really hope and pray that some of it could hearten or invigorate you, even
if it’s in a small way. May the Lord’s presence be felt in your heart and may the
rest of your day be richly blessed.
