Malachi 1:1 “The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.”

Malachi 1:2 “I have loved you, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob,”

Malachi 1:3 “And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.”

Malachi 1:4 “Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the Lord of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the Lord hath indignation for ever.”

Hello readers,

… well I’m back to work tomorrow! 2024 is on in earnest!

We’ve just had a decent amount of rainfall the last few days, and just before the sun was brilliantly shining through clear blue skies! Everything is watered and happy!

My vegetable garden, I don’t think I’ve ever attached a photo of it before, I will sometime soon hopefully when I get the right angle! but it is going quite well. I’ve got chillis, spring onions, cucumbers, strawberries and tomatoes in abundance (along with a bunch of other stuff) There are a lot of tomatoes to harvest soon, masses of big green tomatoes which are showing signs of changing colour (ripening!).

I’ve written quite a number of blogs recently… I’ve almost blogged myself out a bit… and in one of them (I’m pretty sure) I touched on what I’m going to be writing about briefly today… but hopefully in a bit more detail.

I’ve always tried to be regular with my blogs, but some months I haven’t written much, and at other times I have. I can’t believe how long I’ve been doing it, sometimes I have gone back to read an old article (because I need to remember what God showed me) and I don’t even know who wrote that! It’s like I’m reading someone else’s writing.

It’s amazing how, though we change over time, yet God’s word does not. That’s what makes God’s word such an anchor for our life that holds us in the high wind, rising water levels of the perfect storms. God’s word and God’s promises and the gospel therein is unchanging just as he is unchanging! I always will remember when God lifted the story of Jacob and Laban out the Bible for me one day when I realized the difference for Jacob in serving Laban versus serving God.

Jacob served Laban for many years… and yet Laban always lied to him, didn’t mean what he said, and changed the details of his work contract. As Jacob was finally leaving Laban and launching out on a new life following God’s unchanging infallible word alone, Jacob told his wives “your father hath deceived me, and changed my wages ten times”. Thank God that God doesn’t change his word, and any details in his word, no matter how small they are.

Thankfully our God is not like Laban, and that’s why we should serve God as Jacob did. Word of man? No I’ll take the word of God thank you. And it might have taken Jacob a few years, but he got there in the end! Remember, God doesn’t lie to us. He doesn’t change the deal. Imagine if he changed the deal slightly from salvation by grace through faith?! Just imagine. It’s unimaginable… and thankfully cannot happen, because God cannot lie.

In relation to my blogs, and facing a decreased frequency in them as I return to work (but I won’t forget them and I’ve got so much to write about and a couple exciting ones soon actually… exciting to me)… but to be quite honest, I always have a lot more to write than time to write. But that’s not to say I don’t go through “dry spells” in my Christian walk, because most of the time I feel in as desert and rocky place as Abraham must have seen when Lot chose the well watered plains of Sodom and he seemed to be left with the “bad lands”. But he wasn’t, and I haven’t been either.

Sometimes it can be difficult to convey effectively what God has shown me, putting things into words in written form can sometimes be challenging, and there are a few blogs which I’ve had ready to post which I never did, because something just wasn’t quite right.

Last year I went through a long period of struggling to even open my Bible. I managed to survive because even when I don’t read the Bible, it somehow is still going through my mind, honestly I can’t really explain it… but I struggle because it can be really tough to open it when you doubt what it’s saying to you and don’t know which part to trust.

Pretty bad hey. But I’ve had some of the worst questions in my life in recent times… have I chosen the right path? Last year I was seriously challenged on that question… have I got it wrong? Do I quit. Am I crazy? When Satan injects those fiery darts into you, you better get the shield of faith up real quick! I didn’t get my shield up quick enough on multiple occasions, and in those times it was only the grace of God, isn’t it always, bearing me through. I know in time, as already I am seeing, that the only way I made it to the other side is because Jesus was in the boat with me.

Anyway, that’s quite a long intro, because now let’s get to what this blog is about! Sorry if you had to scroll all this way to get to what you really wanted to read about, and what the title suggests it’s about!

Today I am talking about one of the most important and fundamental questions we will ever face…

Does God love me?

… does God love… me?

… me?

Of course, we all know that the Bible says that God loves us. And we say it to others, and we believe it… we think. And there’s that song “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so”.

And yet truly knowing God loves >me< is something else entirely… and you probably haven’t lived much life yet if that question hasn’t been brought to the very forefront of your mind.

The worst thing we can ever doubt is that God loves us… that God loves me. Sure, God loves someone out there perhaps, that’s easy enough to get… but receiving God’s love personally, knowing God’s love personally, that’s a whole different thing “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us.”

It really is a game changer in the Christian life when God really does show us that he truly does love us personally, and that is deeply personal. It is something only you can discover. I can write about it, but I can’t convey my journey through words to you, I believe this is an unutterable part of the Christian life to pass through and fathom.

Because life can truly challenge our belief in God’s love and faithfulness to us. Like … ridiculously so. Like struggling for next breath so. But then when God also shows he does love you, and he did all along, and how could I ever doubt that and question him… it just makes God’s grace the most unsearchable riches of our life ever.

But let’s not pretend we don’t or could never doubt God’s love for us… because we are not alone in having this question. … The book of Malachi begins with this question! So if you’ve got this question… well I have… they did… and so we’ve got a full house here!

If you start reading Malachi, you’ll read that God’s first statement in the book is  “I have loved you”…

It’s a nice thing to be told you are loved. And it’s a nice thing to tell someone else. Who does not want to be loved? It’s something every human being craves in their life, to love and be loved.

Life without love isn’t really worth living. And God prefaces everything that is to follow in this book by saying he’s loved his very special nation of people – Israel. That’s a nice way to start. Often Paul would start and finish his epistles by affirming and reaffirming his love through them.

People need to be reminded that you love them! Not in an empty words way, but it does help a lot when people know what you’re saying is out of love. And it was, everything God has ever given man is out of his love for us “For God so loved the world” he held nothing back from us to show his great love to us.

And here, God is saying to his people (and that’s you also!) that “I have loved you”. God’s not just saying I love you, he’s saying I “have” loved you. This is quite a big difference. Because we’ve got more than just an “I love you” … we’ve got a track record of love being referenced here. Remember, at the time of this book, Israel as a nation has a lot of history to go back an examine this statement by God “I have loved you”. And so this is not just an empty statement by God, it’s a statement that is carrying proof.

PROOF God loves you is what you want right?! Maybe you feel like he doesn’t love you, but how about look back at your life… can you honestly say God hasn’t loved you?

And so this statement of “I have loved you” is a historical arching statement stretching all the way back to the fathers of the faith, because Jacob versus Esau is about to be brought up…  and we know that Jacob was Abraham’s grandson, and Abraham was the first Hebrew.

If you want to find out who has loved you… sometimes you need to look back through history! Not just God, but people that God has put in our lives also. Because we can tend to prioritize people that don’t love us even though they may say they do, over people that do truly love us and it’s been PROVEN “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.”

So identifying what love is, and who truly loves you (truth is always involved in love!), beginning with God… is important! God didn’t wipe this people out for questioning his love, but he’s reassuring them he does… and saying… look at the evidence. These aren’t empty words. God’s words are not empty… EVER. And it’s like God is saying to Israel… Does someone that doesn’t love you treat you like I have? Look how I’ve treated you compared to others. How can you say I don’t love you?

Excellent, so God says he has loved Israel… but “yet ye say, wherein hast thou loved us?”

Despite what God says, these people are doubting God’s love to them! … And yes, it is a bit rich (to say the least) to question God’s love, because as you read the whole book and with the context of the whole Old Testament story, you’ll see it’s a bit rich to accuse God of not loving them when Israel’s history is one big sordid affront to God’s love. Think of how much spiritual adultery the nation committed towards God. Crazy! A nation that had such a big track record of not loving God is now accusing God of not loving them!

And that’s just typical though hey. That’s how humans work, that’s how the ungrateful, small minded, selfish human mind works.

What has tempered my questioning of God’s love for me is realizing I have not truly loved God in my life. If we all get honest about our lives, often it betrays the fact that we do not truly love Jesus Christ. We may plant the kisses on his cheek, but it’s not a psalm 2 kiss, it’s a Judas Iscariot kiss. And also see, that while God can point to his track record in Malachi… when I look at my track record it’s … don’t show that!

So we know that anyone can say they love someone, but is it proven? God’s is. He proved it by sending Jesus Christ. But how proven is my love? Like I can say I love Jesus… but if I love him, why wouldn’t I obey him? “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me”. Wouldn’t if we actually loved God actually solve a lot of our problems?

Nevertheless, God replies to these guys who are saying how have you loved us God? And I find God’s answer quite amazing, because it’s just not what I would imagine. God answers their question and proves his love for Israel by referencing Esau of all people and just showing how special Jacob was and how much special treatment Jacob got.

No, It doesn’t mean God was unfair, but it did show God’s love for them. When we love someone, we tend to treat them differently to everyone else. Maybe you deeply love someone in your life above all else, hopefully it’s God and your spouse! But it’s a fair assumption that you treat that person you love much more favourably than everyone else. That’s how it works.

Why did God pick Jacob? It was nothing Jacob did. Was Jacob really any better than Esau? Not to our sight… and yet God showed amazing grace to Jacob his whole life.

But why does God reference Esau? And I want to show you two thoughts that I have had on this thing, and they were quite profound to me.

Firstly, it is that God treated Jacob as his son, whereas he didn’t treat Esau as his son… because he wasn’t. Not everyone are children of God. When Esau is referenced in Hebrews 12, just before he is, the Bible is talking about chastening, and how God chastens “every son whom he receiveth”.

A parent will only discipline the child that is his. Esau never got the chastening hand of the Lord. Yes his descendants got into fights and wars (often against Israel) and that was human life, and that’s human history, and they did incur the consequences of their actions… but God never dealt with them like he did with Jacob.

Was God unfair? Hardly. Firstly because God can do what he wants. But he is still fair because he always does right. But the fact is, Esau did not care for God like Jacob did. Why did Jacob esteem the birthright that Esau so lightly esteemed? Jacob desired God, Esau did not. Sure, Esau wanted the blessing, and guess what, he got a blessing… there is nothing to suggest that though God says he hated him, that God did anything bad to him at all. Esau just lived a life minus God, though he still enjoyed many of the blessings of God without having any relationship or care for God.

Esau was a fit, strong, capable man. And the Edomites, the nation that came from him, they had an inheritance, a land and a city. They were a force to be reckoned with at times. And they had their land long before Jacob’s seed possessed theirs. Israel when the came out of Egypt passed through Edom’s land and God said don’t fight them, and don’t take any of their land, it belongs to Esau… not you guys.

But what you see in Esau’s life is a lack of God. And as I’ve gone through some of my woes, I have at least realized that God has been dealing with me as a father. And I shouldn’t despise that. Even if I never get anything I want from him, I’m still his son. We should thank God for dealing with us as his precious children. Remember, a parent does things that the child does not understand at the time… not for the child’s harm, but for the child’s good. Often the child is ungrateful and shortsighted and selfish, not understanding the sacrifices the parents are making for them out of love. This is the case with me, and was with Israel.

But here’s the other thing I got, because God references the destruction of Edom. Why did God destroy Edom (Esau’s descendants)? Well you’ve got to find out for yourself about what happened to Edom, and a book like Obadiah is a good one to read… but to summarize… what Edom got was a LONG time coming… what Edom did was abominable and they were a horrible ungodly nation and people. It’s that simple. They reaped what they sowed eventually.

By the way, the decisions we make now may have very very long and far reaching consequences… don’t forget that. Because Esau’s bitterness infected his descendants… so his inability to forgive and seek the grace and face of God didn’t just cost himself. It makes a bit of a difference to our lives when we consider not just our selfish selves doesn’t it.

But here’s the thing, you see how God dealt with Edom… and he destroyed them… never to be rebuilt again “They shall build, but I will throw down”. Now think of how God dealt with his people Israel! Here’s proof of God’s love! And this is the thing that just struck me so much. Because I’ve read Jeremiah multiple times recently, and though God’s judgment was severe… yet it was always done with rebuilding and restoration in mind. It was always for their betterment, and God would always bring them back, after all the book of Malachi is when they’ve returned from Babylon. God had brought them back again! And it’s amazing that as bad as Israel’s history was… everything God did was always for their good. Even all the tough preaching of the prophets… it was just the truth… and it’s intention was fixing, healing, saving.

And we forget this about God, but we should never forget this as Christians, that everything we do should be with an attitude of restoration and reconciliation to God… not destruction. It is so easy to slip into this mindset of seeing people get what they deserve. Sometime I have wielded the Bible like Samson wielded the jawbone, and though it was right, I did not have the right heart attitude. God has always quickly dealt with me on this, and I don’t believe it is at all typical of me… but the fact is… God dealt with his rebellious people always as a loving Father, and even when they needed serious chastening, as we do as his children also when we get right off the right path… it was always done not just with a view to restoration… but with a view to the future glorious time when Jesus Christ returns and his nation is fully restored “And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” God has always been ready and willing for his nation… how on earth could they question his love?

So I want to encourage you, that whatever God is doing in your life, though you may not understand it, get it, though you just can’t see how it could be for your good… God does love you, and you as his child, he is doing a forever work in your life, and no matter even how far we might get ourselves off in sin, his view of us is always drawing us back through cords of love. God does love me. God does love you.

Maybe when we look back through our lives honestly, hopefully we see that he has loved us the whole way. Yeah sure, others seem to be more loved but no, God is not their Father… a Father only deals with his own children. And he is doing what he needs to in our lives so one day we can have the inheritance that he has promised us. That sometimes takes time and a lot of his work on us… but he never ceases to love us and know what’s best for us. He truly does love us, Abba Father. And even though for all of eternity we will barely touch the hem of the garment, I hope he reveals that in all its glory to you one day.

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