S98P5 – Yesterday’s corrective prophecy for today: unparalleled faithfulness
Mal. 3:6-7a
“I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty.
The child had become a problem in more ways than one. Because of her age, many had advised her to send him to live with younger relatives or even to try foster care. She had raised her own children years earlier, and she was no longer the woman she had been in those days. This boy, however, was not just some child. This was her grandson, and she had promised to raise him after her daughter’s death. Her daughter might have been gone, but that did not mean that she would forget the promise she had made. No matter how trying those years would be, and no matter the dents and bruises her relationship with her grandson would sustain, she resolved to care for him as if that promise had been made to the Lord.
Genesis 28 tells the story of Jacob’s dream and the Lord’s promise to him. That dream along with God’s unchanging character are the reasons why destruction did not meet Jacob’s descendants. God called out this generation during the time of Malachi along with prior generations for their unfaithfulness, but He remained steadfast in his promise to Jacob. His faithfulness to that promise manifested as his patience during times of great unfaithfulness and sin by the very people He wanted to make prosper. If we view this in light of God’s omniscience, this faithfulness is even more incredible. He made a promise to Jacob knowing what would come down the pike, knowing that the very people He wanted to bless and call his own would turn from him time and again.
Our lack of faithfulness to God is a strange thing. We see him stand by and remain devoted to people who defy him and betray him. We do the same thing, and we rest on the fact that He will remain. That is our God, staying faithful to those who are unfaithful to him. When we survey this relationship, it is a wonder that we would so comfortably betray the only one we can be sure never would betray us. It is not even in his capacity to do so. How hurtful we are to trespass against the one who would never trespass against us! How wise we would be to turn from any modicum of sin and determine to walk in faithfulness now. Father, thank You for your unchanging nature and your unrelenting devotion to your word, and give us a measure of your faithfulness.