July 22, 2025

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“‘I will send My messenger, who will prepare the way before Me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to His temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,’ says the Lord Almighty.” (Malachi 3.1)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD TO US:

God’s answer is the Messiah. Mind you, it is not a “messiah-type,” but the Messiah. As Christ-followers gifted with the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth who is the Christ, we know the promise which Malachi bears witness to that “God is just.” God has done what He said He would do. God is doing what He said He would do. God will do what He said He would do. There is no shadow of doubt about this. We know of the man of God who came into the world in the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. In today’s verse for reflection, we know that “Man” as the Messenger of the Covenant. The summation of the desires of the believing community, whether in part or in whole, is the Messenger of the Covenant. There will be no other. I find it curious that the “other” messenger, the one who will prepare the way before the Messenger of the Covenant who Himself will prepare the way for the Lord they seek, will ask of the Messenger who is the Lord, “Are you the One or should we seek another?” (Matthew 11.3) Does John the Baptizer, the cousin of Jesus, not believe that Jesus of Nazareth is that “messenger”? Or does he desire for Jesus to provide evidence in an outward way of His true identity? Perhaps what John is seeking is the validation of “his confidence and his hope” because he knows the time has come for him “to decrease so that He may increase.” Jesus responds to John’s question “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up and the poor have good news preached to them. Blessed is the one who is not offended by Me.” (Matthew 11.4-5) The one whom John was seeking to provide for Him comfort and resolve to face His own death for the sake of the gospel, would be the very One who would face His own death for the sake of the gospel. In it the alert is given “Blessed is the one who is not offended by Me.” Was He speaking to John and John’s disciples? Was He speaking of what was to come by Peter and the disciples? Was He speaking of the priests and the rulers of the Temple (the Sadducees and the Pharisees)? Was He speaking of all who would seek the gospel of freedom and justice and be confronted by it with the person of Jesus who is, was and will forever be- Christ and Lord? Was He speaking to US?

We know from the witness of John the beloved disciple that Jesus declared “I AM the way, the truth and the life; by no other and by no other means can one enter into the fullness of God’s presence in His Kingdom.” (John 14.6) Jesus was not, is not and will never be merely the hope of what is yet to come. He is the fulfillment of all hope. He is the answer to the most important question of our lives. We, like John sitting in prison awaiting the execution of the sentence against him, want to know in our troubled and challenging times, “Are you the One or should we seek another?” Had the priests in Malachi’s days, and the people whom they served, accepted that their hope for “justice and peace would never come? Was it, perhaps, that their hope was defined on their own terms instead of that which God had already presented? This was not the frame of reference which John the Baptizer used when seeking confirmation from Jesus. John knew of the prophesies. He himself was a fulfillment of one of them as the “one crying in the wilderness.” He was facing his own life and death sentence based upon his belief in the word of God given to him to proclaim the coming of the Lord. He knew that his Lord was the one declared by the prophet Isaiah to be “King of kings, Lord of lords, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace upon whose shoulders the weight of the governance of Israel and all humankind would rest.” He knew Jesus was Lord and Savior as the Lamb of God who would take away the sting of the sins of the world which was eternal death and damnation. Do we? Why are we not crying out in confidence in the wilderness places of our lives? Why are we not confronting “the lies professed as truths” and “unrighteousness proclaimed as righteousness”? God said “He will come.” Do we think God is a liar? Do we believe that God is unrighteous? Do we consider God’s justice unfair and ineffective? Mighty ones, we are presented with a covenant challenge and promise. By them only shall we have life and have it abundantly. That challenge to the world and the promise of the Kingdom is Jesus the Christ. He is ours and we are His. Believe it! Pursue it! Declare it! Live it!

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness but as righteous works which bring others near to Jesus in faith, hope and love. AMEN.