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Day 2 Malachi 2 Malachi 2:1 And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you. 2 If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, says the LORD of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart. 3 Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it. 4 And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant might be with Levi, says the LORD of hosts. 5 My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name. 6 The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity. 7 For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts. 8 But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the LORD of hosts. 9 Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law. 10 Have we not all one father? Hath not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers? 11 Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the LORD which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god. 12 The LORD will cut off the man that does this, the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and him that offers an offering unto the LORD of hosts. 13 And this have ye done again, covering the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, insomuch that he regards not the offering anymore, or receives it with good will at your hand. 14 Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. 15 And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. 16 For the LORD, the God of Israel, says that he hates putting away: for one covers violence with his garment, says the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously. 17 Ye have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Everyone that does evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delights in them; or, Where is the God of judgment? Compromise. When you consider how people treat each other, how you interpret the laws governing you, how you tolerate immorality in what you see, hear, and do, you are compromising what you believe to blend in with everyone else. God through Malachi, told the people, particularly the priests of Levi, who had the covenant and priesthood for life, they had forsaken the law and put their own interpretation on it, even to the point of divorcing their wives. God told his people they had turned around evil and good. What God said was evil, was considered good in the eyes of his people, and good was considered evil. Nothing has changed. People are still doing the same thing God rebuked his people of doing. They compromised their morals so they don’t stand out from the crowd. Even as Christians, you do the same. You compromise the Word of God, and tolerate every religion, making Christianity no different from any other religion, when Christianity isn’t a religion, it’s a relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ, and God our Father. Why is it more important to blend in with everyone else, instead of obeying God and living as he directs? Romans 6:1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? 2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? 3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: 6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. 7 For he that is dead is freed from sin. (KJV) Ephesians 4:22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; 23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; 24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. 25 Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor: for we are members one of another. (KJV) Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (KJV) When you remember your commitment to Jesus Christ when you said you were his, and his alone, you will get rid of compromise, and turn again to a right relationship with him. Jesus told his disciples they were not to be like the world, but to be separate from the world, even as they lived in the world. John 15:18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. 21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin. 23 He that hates me hates my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. Why do you compromise? You compromise because you don’t want the world to hate you. Therefore, you tolerate everything, and turn evil into good and good into evil. It’s time to turn back to God and what you committed to when you accepted Jesus as Savior and Lord. Let’s pray: Father, you hate sin. You do not tolerate the ways of this world, and you asked me not to tolerate them either, but to set myself apart from it. Help me stand against compromise and put your Word in front of my face as a mirror, so I can see and know what is right, and turn away from every wrong, immoral action. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen. Copyright © 17 April 2018 by Valerie Routhieaux Image courtesy of Pixabay