Malachi 3:6-18  NIV

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

 

God is a good God. Psalms 145:8-9 says that “the LORD is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy. The LORD is good to all, And His tender mercies are over all His works.” God is good – always good – and He does not change, therefore we benefit from His mercy and compassion. Even though we try His patience and we do not deserve His grace, He offers it anyway.

 

7 “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. “But you ask, `How are we to return?’

 

8 “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. “But you ask, `How do we rob you?’ “In tithes and offerings.

 

9 You are under a curse-the whole nation of you-because you are robbing me.”

 

We invest our treasure where our heart is. If we love someone – we give him or her our devotion, our time and our possessions. If we really love God, we give our best offerings to Him. God is not the One who draws back or who deserts us. We are the ones who draw back from Him. When we draw back from God spiritually, we also hold back our substance – our money – from Him. By our stinginess toward God, we demonstrate our lack of love and devotion toward Him. God says that when we fail to pay our tithe to Him, that we are robbing Him and we have brought a curse upon ourselves.

 

10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. If we love God we will give to Him. Every time we receive an income – we should bring our whole tithe (ten percent) to the Lord. The devil would like us to operate in fear instead of faith in the area of our finances. He wants us to think that if we give our money away to God, then we will have less for ourselves, but God says that if we give to Him, we will receive a blessing so huge that we will not even have room for the whole blessing!

 

11 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit,” says the LORD Almighty.

Our tithe releases God’s blessing upon us. God not only promises to bless us, but to protect and bless the work of our hands. The work we do will be exceptionally blessed. It will produce more than what we would expect normally.

 

12 “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the LORD Almighty.

We will be so blessed that other people will notice how blessed we are.

 

13 “You have said harsh things against me,” says the LORD. “Yet you ask, `What have we said against you?’

 

14 “You have said, `It is futile to serve God. What did we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the LORD Almighty?

 

15 But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly the evildoers prosper, and even those who challenge God escape.'”

 

We need to put a guard over our mouth. God is not our problem, nor the source of our problems. Sometimes we complain to the Lord and we say hard things against Him. We think that our sacrifices are for nothing. We think that God does not see or care that we have sacrificed for Him and we want to stop our giving and tithing. Sometimes we look at sinners and we think that they are more blessed than we are. We think that they have a better time than we do; we think that they are getting away with their arrogance and defiance. But we are wrong!

 

16 Then those who feared the LORD talked with each other, and the LORD listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the LORD and honored his name.

 

17 “They will be mine,” says the LORD Almighty, “in the day when I make up my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him.

 

18 And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.

God sees and notes everything we do. You can be sure that your love, obedience, tithing and giving will be rewarded – here on earth and in heaven!

 

Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man

whose sin the Lord will never count against him.” Romans 4:4-8 NIV

Rodney Howard Browne teaches us that forgiveness from sin is priceless. The gift of salvation, of righteousness and of forgiveness from sin is priceless. We cannot pay for it. If we owned the whole world, we would not have enough money to buy one drop of Jesus’ blood. That is why the Lord had to offer this awesome gift to us totally free. The only price we pay is to yield ourselves to Him. Isaiah 55:1 (Amplified) says that it is takes self-surrender to accept the blessing of priceless spiritual wine and milk!

Those who are washed in the blood of Jesus, whose transgressions are forgiven, and whose sins are covered are blessed, blessed, blessed! Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him. What a joy to be forgiven! Even though we have sinned – even sinned deliberately – we can still be forgiven and washed clean as if we had never sinned.

You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Galatians 5:13-14 NIV

Rodney Howard Browne teaches us to treasure Christ’s gift of forgiveness. Just because your salvation was free, does not mean that it was cheap. It is not a gift that we should misuse. Freedom is something to be valued and enjoyed. Don’t use your freedom as an excuse for sin. Just because you have experienced freedom from religion and bondage and just because your conscience is clean now and forgiveness is just a prayer away – that does not mean that you are free to indulge your flesh.

Some people think that in order to be “not religious” you should indulge your fleshly desires. Of course they all think that they are “in control” and they can “handle” it. But every person who is in bondage to their flesh now, started out originally, thinking that they were in control! The problem is that you are usually firmly in bondage long you even realize you are. Being carnal and yielding to carnality may be the opposite of being religious, but it is not spiritual by any means and neither will it benefit you in any way whatsoever.

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.

Romans 12:3 NIV

The key to protecting your heart from sin is humility. Don’t think that you are impervious to temptation. Don’t trust yourself near temptation. Don’t place yourself in a position where you can possibly be tempted.

Abstain from all appearance of evil. 1 Thessalonians 5:22 KJV

Don’t participate in any thing that even looks like sin. If you are not going to be religious – then be spiritual – fall in love with Jesus again.

See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. Hebrews 3:12-13 NIV

Sin is deceitful and it will harden your heart. When we sin, we have the option to turn toward God and confess our sin and ask God for forgiveness. However, if we begin to enjoy our sin or if we are prideful and defensive about our sin then we will make excuses for ourselves. We will find fault with God, the preacher, and everybody else. We will blame others for our problems. When your heart is hard you are in big trouble. You become completely insensitive to the Holy Spirit and that is a sad place for a Christian to be.

Protect your heart from sin and you will protect it from becoming hardened toward God. Stay on fire for God and allow the Holy Spirit to burn out any bad attitude before it can come between you and your Lord and Savior.