Kin or kindling?
This week is on Malachi 4:1-3:
I like the imagery in these verses, and they hold a fairly simple truth in them. People talk about Judgment Day and the end times like it's some great coming attraction, but they forget about today. How we are today determines whether it will be a good time or a bad time. That's not saying that our behavior determines whether we spend eternity with Jesus or as ashes, but that our relationship with him is what gives us access to him.
When we first expressed interest in God, and began to pray to Him, we didn't get some spiritual medallion that wards off calamity and damnation. We got a friend. The friend is who protects us and prepares a place for us. We can't ignore the friend and expect the reward. And we can't adore the friend without eventually becoming like him in our values and behavior.
God says, in these verses, that there are two situations we can find ourselves in, in the future. One gets torched, and the other gets fixed up. One is miserable, and the other is full of joy. It is within our power to decide which group we'll join when the time comes.
So, how do you get burnt up in eternal fire, and spread out as ashes to be trampled by the people you didn't care about in life? It's easy. Be arrogant. Be selfish and self-promoting, trampling on others to get what you want. Arrogance places others below you. It says that you don't need anyone, especially not some fairy tale daddy on a cloud someplace. It says greed is good, that the ends justify the means, and that if you don't do it, someone else will. The arrogant evildoers trample on God's beloved in order to try to steal the reward he had set out for them. God is not in their lives in any sense that can affect their soul, not while they have a choice in the matter.
How about the "happy like squirrel," fat frolicking calf, with all new knees and perfect skin scenario? How do we get that? Revere God's name. Find it valuable. Respect it. Use it. If we invite God into our lives, intimately, we allow him to guide and direct us. We can't be arrogant when we admit our need for him and recognize our place in his family. We can't be evil when he advises us and we listen. The people who get the eternal goodness are the people who feel in their heart that God is valuable. He isn't a genie to be rubbed for wishes. He is a friend and a constant companion. These lucky people revere God's name because they use it all of the time. They cannot exist in any good sense without it, and without Him.
I love the phrase "the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays." As a geek, I hate the sun, with its burny glarey rays and its evil cancer. It's pretty much impossible to hide from it. You don't have to do anything to be touched by it. You just have to be around it. For that reason, I'd love the sun if it had healing in its rays. That would be the coolest thing ever, to just stand there and have all of that warm sunshine fix all of our issues. I want to see that, and I believe I eventually will.
So, are you God's kin, basking in his warm glow when you can, or are you kindling for the bonfire of the damned, producing from yourself a different kind of glow entirely? I know which one I want to be.
“Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire,” says the LORD Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them. But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves. Then you will trample on the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I act,” says the LORD Almighty.
I like the imagery in these verses, and they hold a fairly simple truth in them. People talk about Judgment Day and the end times like it's some great coming attraction, but they forget about today. How we are today determines whether it will be a good time or a bad time. That's not saying that our behavior determines whether we spend eternity with Jesus or as ashes, but that our relationship with him is what gives us access to him.
When we first expressed interest in God, and began to pray to Him, we didn't get some spiritual medallion that wards off calamity and damnation. We got a friend. The friend is who protects us and prepares a place for us. We can't ignore the friend and expect the reward. And we can't adore the friend without eventually becoming like him in our values and behavior.
God says, in these verses, that there are two situations we can find ourselves in, in the future. One gets torched, and the other gets fixed up. One is miserable, and the other is full of joy. It is within our power to decide which group we'll join when the time comes.
So, how do you get burnt up in eternal fire, and spread out as ashes to be trampled by the people you didn't care about in life? It's easy. Be arrogant. Be selfish and self-promoting, trampling on others to get what you want. Arrogance places others below you. It says that you don't need anyone, especially not some fairy tale daddy on a cloud someplace. It says greed is good, that the ends justify the means, and that if you don't do it, someone else will. The arrogant evildoers trample on God's beloved in order to try to steal the reward he had set out for them. God is not in their lives in any sense that can affect their soul, not while they have a choice in the matter.
How about the "happy like squirrel," fat frolicking calf, with all new knees and perfect skin scenario? How do we get that? Revere God's name. Find it valuable. Respect it. Use it. If we invite God into our lives, intimately, we allow him to guide and direct us. We can't be arrogant when we admit our need for him and recognize our place in his family. We can't be evil when he advises us and we listen. The people who get the eternal goodness are the people who feel in their heart that God is valuable. He isn't a genie to be rubbed for wishes. He is a friend and a constant companion. These lucky people revere God's name because they use it all of the time. They cannot exist in any good sense without it, and without Him.
I love the phrase "the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays." As a geek, I hate the sun, with its burny glarey rays and its evil cancer. It's pretty much impossible to hide from it. You don't have to do anything to be touched by it. You just have to be around it. For that reason, I'd love the sun if it had healing in its rays. That would be the coolest thing ever, to just stand there and have all of that warm sunshine fix all of our issues. I want to see that, and I believe I eventually will.
So, are you God's kin, basking in his warm glow when you can, or are you kindling for the bonfire of the damned, producing from yourself a different kind of glow entirely? I know which one I want to be.
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