Is God Getting the Leftovers?

Malachi 1:6-8

The Lord of Heaven’s Armies says to the priests: “A son honors his father, and a servant respects his master. If I am your father and master, where are the honor and respect I deserve? You have shown contempt for my name!

“But you ask, ‘How have we ever shown contempt for your name?’

“You have shown contempt by offering defiled sacrifices on my altar.

“Then you ask, ‘How have we defiled the sacrifices?’

“You defile them by saying the altar of the Lord deserves no respect.  When you give blind animals as sacrifices, isn’t that wrong? And isn’t it wrong to offer animals that are crippled and diseased? Try giving gifts like that to your governor, and see how pleased he is!” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.

We come to the last prophet and the last book in the Old Testment, Malachi.  Malachi was active nearly 100 years after people had returned to Jerusalem following the Babylonian Exile.  The temple and walls had been rebuilt and religious reforms had been implemented generations ago.  Everything was awesome right?  Unfortunately, no.

I know this will be hard to believe, but the second and third generations after the exile had already forgotten God and started worshipping other Gods.  They started participating in unjust business practices and oppressing the poor again.  The crazy thing about all of this is that the people thought they were doing just fine.  They were not even able to see how far they had fallen.  Malachi confronts them.

In the passage above, Malachi addresses the sacrifices they are offering.  Instead offering God their best animals, they would offer animals with defects or even illness.  They would offer animals that may have otherwise been destroyed anyway.  It reminded me of clothing drives I have been part of earlier in my ministry.  We would ask for clothing to give to those who could not afford to buy them.  We would often get clothing with nasty stains or even holes in them.  We had to simply throw it away.  We couldn’t imagine the message it would send to the people receiving essentially someone’s garbage.   

Malachi calls this out.  He draws a contrast between what they say and what they are actually doing.  They say, “we give God only our best, but the reality was they were giving God their leftovers.  A couple of hundred years later, Jesus would put it this way:

“’Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:40)

In other words, God should get our best, not our leftovers.  The practice of our faith is not a side hustle.  It’s the primary focus of our lives and all of our actions ought to express that.  I invite you to ask yourself a tough question; Is God really getting your best?  If not, then why not?

Prayer:  God, we confess that we don’t always offer you our best time, effort, and sentiment.  Forgive us we pray and lead us to do better. Amen.

Prayer Focus:  Pray for those endangered by the cold right now.

Song:  Cory Asbury – Dear God