Day 191 - Love/Fear
📖Daily Reading
Malachi
🎥 Video
Join me on my morning walk as we rise and shine together by walking through the Bible daily and learn a practical applicable coaching nugget from the ultimate life coach - our creator (whatever that means to you). No judgement zone here, all are welcome, we are all on a spiritual journey because we are after all spiritual beings having a human experience.
📝 Reflection
Malachi 3:10
“Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in! Try it! Put me to the test! Your crops will be abundant, for I will guard them from insects and disease. Your grapes will not fall from the vine before they are ripe, “ says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for your land will be such a delight, “ says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
God is a God of love not fear and love over fear. The book of Malachi focuses a lot on the ‘practice’ of sacrificial offerings. The ‘people’ are being called out for sacrificing less than perfect animals, living in sin but worshipping with tears and moaning and wearing him out with empty words - essentially going through the motions and convincing themselves that their heart is really in it. In verse 2:14 it says that “You cry out , ‘Why doesn’t the Lord accept my worship?’”. I know I have been guilty of this a lot!! I am earnestly seeking the Lord and making sacrifices. Maybe you are too, and you think to yourself that sacrifice in and of itself is enough and is the point. Why does it matter what we sacrifice or the condition of the sacrifice?
As I sat with this and dug deeper I think it comes does to fear. Why was it hard to for a person of this time to give their best animal? These were some of their most valuable resources. I am sure they thought why would God ask me to give up my most valuable resource. That doesn’t seem very loving, I need it more than he does.
Even though we are told repeatedly through the scriptures that He will bless us tenfold in return for our most precious sacrifices. We are starting and ending with our limited understanding of how things work. He is asking us to Love him and show that love by putting full trust and faith in him. Faith, love and trust do not share the same frequency and can’t coexist together simultaneously with fear.
Most of us when we are making sacrifices are doing it from a place of fear. Think about it. This is why we want to hold on to our most precious resources. This isn’t just about money either, this is about behaviors, possessions, relationships, ways of being, positions, identity. All sacrifices are good, in that they are a step in the right direction, but don’t fool yourself that the journey is done and that those sacrifices are ‘enough’.
It always goes back to the heart of the matter. God is after our hearts and our love. When we are holding on to things outside of him we are holding ourselves back from experiencing the fullness of his love and blessings. He is not withholding, we are! By holding onto our most precious ‘things’ and convincing ourselves that what we do sacrifice is ‘good enough’ do we miss out on the great blessings that God wants to bestow on us?
This is the last book of the Old Testament and through Malachi He really lays it on the line! We know that through the New Testament and through Jesus that ‘he puts his money where is mouth is’. He sacrificed His most precious and beloved son to bless each of us with the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is the only place in the Bible where he not only gives us permission to “test Him”, he invites and encourages us to test Him on this! This requires loving Him above all else. We prove our love through our sacrifices which takes courage, faith, commitment and trust.
✍🏼Daily Journal Prompt
What do you need to let go of? What are you afraid of? Dig into this for yourself, like really seriously dig. Ask yourself why and what you are afraid of if you let ‘that thing’ go?
📖Tomorrows Reading
Matthew 1-5
Coaching Opportunity
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