HE DESERVES OUR BEST

Malachi 1:6 “If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?" says the Lord Almighty.”

After listening restlessly to a long and tedious sermon, a 6-year-old boy asked his father what the preacher did the rest of the week. “Oh, he’s a very busy man,” the father replied. “He takes care of church business, visits the sick, works on his sermon, counsels people…and then he has to have time to rest up because speaking in public isn’t an easy job.” The boy thought for a moment and then said, “Well, listening ain’t easy, either!” The words of Malachi the prophet could not have been easy to hear, but they were surely necessary.

Let me remind you of the situation that Malachi is addressing. The Jews have returned to their land after living in modern-day Iraq for 70 years. The Temple has been rebuilt and the worship of God has been reestablished. But things are not easy. While outwardly everything seems okay, on the inside a cancer of complacency is eating away at their commitment. As God’s final spokesman at the end of the Old Testament, Malachi comes on the scene to challenge them, and us, to give God our best.

If we want to give God our best we must first embrace authenticity. We must stop just going through the motions, refuse to play church, and do whatever it takes to keep the fire burning. We can fall into a trap of dishonoring God and counting him contemptible when we try to live on what Charles Swindoll calls, “three dollars’ worth of God.” He writes, “Some of us would love to buy three dollars worth of God. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine…I want ecstasy, not transformation. I want the warmth of the womb, not new birth. I want a pound of the eternal in a paper sack. I want three dollars worth of God, please.”

God deserves priority over our possessions. These people were more concerned with keeping what they had than they were in giving God their best. Their hearts were not in it any longer. They were still coming to church but it was just a meaningless ritual to them. They had accepted mediocrity in their lives and their leaders did nothing about it. God tells them to try and offer their junk to the governor as payment of their taxes and see if he would accept them. The bottom line is they thought God didn’t care what they did. After all, they were middle class people who had worked hard. They had high taxes, bills to pay, and they didn’t have a lot of extra cash.

As hard as this may be to hear, God does not need our sacrifices. He’s saying to us today, “Don’t you dare allow me to be represented as some lifeless religious icon. I’d rather you shut everything down than have you continue in a phony religious ritual. If you’re not prepared to give me every inch of your life, then you can’t play church because I’m closing the doors.” These stings, but no worship at all is better than halfhearted sacrifice. God doesn’t need us to give him anything.

Are you giving God your best with your time, with your talents, and with your treasures? Are you giving Him what is left, or what is right? If we’re going to give Him our best, we must first grasp His greatness and embrace an authentic faith.