This is the message that the Lord gave to Israel through the prophet Malachi. The Lord’s Love for Israel “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.” (Malachi 1:1-3)
One of my students was called by his parents that the Post Office brought a letter from the White House for him. The message is from the Presidency and he has been invited for a visit to the President because of a laudable project he did in his community as a teenager.
Come to think of it, we all look with excitement when we see the postman at our door with letters in their hands for us. We are curious to see what they have for us. As we flip through the mails to see where the letters came from, one of them reads – “From the Lord to you”. The Lord? God sending me a letter? What kinds of thoughts will fill your heart? I personally would think a ministry had sent that to preach to me.
But then you open the letter and it says, “Here is the Lord’s message to you”. As you attempt to read on, the letter starts to read itself out, “I have loved you very dearly and deeply”, says the Lord. What will be your response? Throw the Letter down? Faint? Run away? Cry out for help? Just imagine what the experience will look like for you for a moment, and think – “What will I do?”
The voice reading the letter is indispensably divine and it came with a divine presence that lighten up your whole home, saying, “I have loved you very deeply”, says the Lord. And then the voice added, “But you have never believed me. You have always doubted and questioned my love for you. And that makes it very difficult for you to give me your whole heart and serve me with your whole life”.
God sent this same message to Israel through Malachi as seen in today’s Bible passage cited above, it was a powerful, personal, penetrating and plain message. Let me say at this point friend that God’s claim of a very deep love for you and me is not a careless statement; He has a proof for it against our own doubts and divided hearts and minds.
But our typical responses are often full of doubts. We retort, “Really? When was this? When did God love me? How did His love come through? Yes! We need the proof! The Evidence. And God has them.
God replied, “I showed my love for you by loving your father, Jacob, and making him a great nation among the whole earth. I singled him out for a blessing that you all enjoy today. I didn’t have to, but I did. Remember that he was not the only son of his father, Isaac. He also had a brother, Esau, who I rejected. I went on to even destroy Esau’s Mountains and inheritance and gave them to the Jackals of the desert. But I loved Jacob your father and chose him for a Blessing”.
I loved Jacob and gave him my Covenant and Blessing. I gave him an altar and not a mountain. I gave him the inheritance you all enjoy today because I loved him. I gave you the opportunity of goodly heritage by my love for your father, Jacob. Unlike Esau, whose heritage I destroyed; I have continued to bless you as the seeds of my beloved Jacob.
Lift up your eyes and look around to see the evidence – see what I am doing around the world with you as little as you are, O Israel. They are proofs of my love and power at work on your behalf.
Here is the point: God has chosen and loved the children of Israel in Jacob just as He has chosen and loved us in Christ. Jacob is a type of Christ and because of God’s love for Jesus, He loves us whom Jesus died for and begot so dearly. We are the adopted children of God through Christ on whom He has showered the same love He has for Christ Jesus. The Bible is clear about this – The Father loves us the very same way He loves His Son, Jesus Christ. And the proof remains the death of His Son Jesus Christ.
Let you heart receive the truth that God loves you today and let that truth change your life. Open your heart to God’s love, receive Eternal Life and Enjoy the Blessings of God.
I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. (John 17:23)
Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. (John 15:9)
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
