Malachi 2:10–12 (ESV) — 10 Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers? 11 Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. 12 May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob any descendant of the man who does this, who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts!
NOTE: Judah is the Lord's. But Judah has been faithless to its covenant with God. What does it mean when it says that Judah has married the daughter of a foreign God? This is a common motif used in the Old Testament for faithlessness. God also calls Judah a prostitute, harlot, and an adulterer. The idea is that Judah was supposed to be committed to the Lord, but instead Juda sought other ways to satisfy its fleshly appetite contrary to God's law, thereby breaking her covenant. Jesus says that you cannot serve God and Mammon. The end result is that you will love one and hate the other. As Christians, we try to love both even though we vehemently deny it. We really want the comfortable middle-class American Christianity. We worship comfort more than God, and so we too are idolaters and prostitutes spiritually.
PONDER:
1) How do we really love God first and avoid the temptation of the world to love things? Where do we start?
2) And how can we tell if our affections are more for things than for God?
PRAYER: Father, help me to give my time and energy to you. Help me to make you the first thing I do every day and the last things I do every day. I want to start and end my days with what is really important to me. Amen.
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