Amazing grace will always be my song of praise
For it was grace that brought me Liberty
I do not know just why He came to love me so
He looked beyond my fault and saw my need
– Dottie Rambo
In my Bible Recap reading plan I’ve finished the Old Testament. Although I’ve read the Bible through several times before, I think the enormity and hopelessness of human sinful nature hit me this time.
Over several thousand years, God called Abraham and his descendants to be the Chosen People. He rescued them from slavery, provided a Promised Land, warned them of idolatry and apostasy, gave them the kings they wanted, watched them sin repeatedly and dreadfully, faithfully sent prophets to call the people back into right relationship with him, and sadly witnessed again and again and again their refusal to turn back to God and to righteousness. After all he had done for them, he must have been very sad. Finally as punishment for their sins he allowed them to be exiled from their promised home land into enemy territories, but even then with the promise that after 70 years they would return. When they did return they were only half-hearted about rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem and the Temple to worship God.
In Malachi 1:6 (NIV) God says, “A son honors his father, and a slave his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?” God goes on to point out how the priests have offered blemished sacrifices in the Temple and not taught the people God’s ways. Then he speaks against those who have worshipped foreign gods, divorced their faithful wives, do not tithe, and those who are sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice. (Malachi 1-3). He reminds them that “I am a great king…and my name is to be feared among the nations.” (Malachi 1:14 NIV) You can hear his frustration, righteous anger, resignation – and even sadness – in one of the final verses of the Old Testament: “Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire,” says the Lord Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them.” (Malachi 4:1 NIV) The people’s sin is profound.
Yet, even in the midst of all this despair, there are moments of hope.
When the people who still feared and honored the Lord talked with him, he listened and heard. (Malachi 3:16). Then he responded: “On the day when I act,” says the Lord Almighty, “they will be my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as a father has compassion and spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not…[F]or you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves.Then you will trample on the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I act,” says the Lord Almighty.” (Malachi 3:17-18, 4:2-3 NIV). He promised compassion and protection for the righteous, even as the wicked will be destroyed.
He also hints at the coming of John the Baptist and the Messiah, Jesus the Christ.
“See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents...” (Malachi 4:5-6 NIV)
“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 NIV)
After centuries upon centuries and generations upon generations of the people being unable to keep the Covenant with God, God still wants them to be his children. He cannot abide near their sin, so he is preparing for Messiah’s coming. They cannot save themselves. They need a savior. So he sends Jesus.
We cannot save ourselves; we need a Savior. We need Jesus.
Through all the different twists and turns of the story of God’s people in the Old Testament, the end trajectory is simple. We need God and can’t get to him on our own. No way, no how, not gonna’ happen. There is no hope for our eternity without God’s intervention.
Enter Jesus. It is only by Jesus that our sin could be erased and we could be God’s children.
I shall forever lift my eyes to Calvary
To view the cross where Jesus died for me
How marvelous the grace that caught my falling soul
He looked beyond fault and saw my need – Dottie Rambo
We were created to need God. Our sinful-by-nature selves need the grace Jesus offers. And we need to bee led by the wisest, most compassionate being in the Universe – Holy Spirit. He looked beyond our faults and saw our needs. Thanks be to God!
God,
For your mercy, your compassion, your love and your grace, we give you thanks. Thank you for offering us grace through the sacrificial gift of Jesus Christ and through the Holy Spirit’s continual invitation to come into relationship with you. Help us to know our need for you and to respect and honor you with our lives, we ask in Jesus’s name, AMEN.
“Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.” (Ephesians 2:3-5 TPT)