“My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to my name, because my name will be great among the nations,’” says the LORD Almighty.”
~ Malachai 1:11
Hi James and Ellen,
Do you love your dad and ma more than you love God? Jacob loved Rachel more than he loved Leah even though both Rachel and Leah were his wives. God loved Jacob more than He loved Esau. God even said that He hated Esau and that He loved Jacob. Your grandpaa does not know how God can be capable of hate but . . . what God expects from you is that you put loving Him before loving your dad and ma. God knows that if you love Him that you will also find yourselves loving your dad and ma. God knows that if you put loving your dad and ma before loving Him that you may never love Him. God never ever wants left over love. God Himself has selective love for the guys, gals and kids who He specially chose and elected before He created planet Earth. God specifically chose Jacob to be the patriarch of a nation of guys, gals and kids. This nation of guys, gals and kids became the Israelite people group. Jacob was a second born twin. Because the firstborn twin – Esau, was born seconds before Jacob was born, Jacob could not be the recipient of the birthright inheritance that the first boy born was entitled to receive. Jacob in cahoots with his ma – Rebecca, hoodwinked his bro – Esau, in order to receive the inheritance that the boy born first in a nuclear family was anticipated to receive. When Esau found out what Jacob had done to him – after Jacob had been given the oldest son final blessing from his dying and blind dad – Isaac, Jacob took off northeast to Haran to stay with one of his dad’s nephews – Laban, while Esau cooled off from having been duped by his kid bro. When Jacob fled for his life to a relative’s house to escape his big bro, Esau headed for a mountainous, craggy area that is situated between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqabah. This area is located to the southeast of where he and Jacob grew up together. Esau’s extended family of guys and gals became known as the Edomite people group. The Edomite people group’s guys and gals dug out caves high up in the cliffs caves places to live. The Edomite people group guys and gals became very proud, arrogant because they believed that they could never be destroyed by guys from another people group of guys and gals or be defeated by guys from an enemy nation of guys and gals.
God had other plans for the guys and gals who were from the Edomite people group. A minor prophet whose name is Malachi scribed a missive that God – as God the Spirit, breathed on him to scribe. Malachi scribed the letter that goes by his name one hundred years or so after God’s specially chosen guys and gals had gotten back to the land that God told them that they would always have to live in as their very own land if . . . God had seen to it the exiling of a good number of His specially chosen guys and gals to the city of Babylon because of their continual disobedience towards Him. God’s specially chosen guys had already completed rebuilding the temple of God that was located in the city of Jerusalem which the Babylonian army had razed when they overran the city of Jerusalem. Because Malachi was a contemporary of Nehemiah, Malachi probably knew the backdrop of how the walls that surrounded the city of Jerusalem were reconstructed. At the time that God – as God the Spirit, breathed on Malachi to scribe his communiqué, God’s specially chosen guys and gals may have become dispirited. There is a possibility that God wanted to revitalize His specially chosen guys and gals who were living in the city of Jerusalem. Malachi 1 begins with a message from God to His specially chosen guys and gals to tell them that He loves them more than He loves their patriarch’s older twin bro’s extended family of guys and gals. God – through God the Sprit, then informs or denounces the Edomite people group’s guys and gals by saying that no matter what they do to try to survive, that they ultimately will be totally crushed by guys from enemy nations. Verse 11 gives the reason why God continually sets up people groups of guys and gals – such as the Edomite people group’s guys and gals, like He does, “My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to my name, because my name will be great among the nations,’” says the LORD Almighty.”
As God – as God the Spirit, breathed on him the words to scribe, His word’s message spoke directly to the kind of offerings that God expected 2400 years ago from His specially chosen guys and gals and what God expects from His specially elected guys and gals today. God – 2400 years ago, did not like it at all whenever any of specially chosen guys and gals tried to offer up a blind, lame, diseased or blemished bull, lamb or goat as a sacrificial offering to Him. God today is displeased when one of His specially elected guys, gals or kids tries to offer up as a sacrificial offering his or her life that he or she has centered on achieving personal power, prestige and position. Esau thought of himself before he thought of others. Jacob also seemed to think of himself before he thought of others. Jacob’s heart seems to have been softer than Esau’s heart. Your grandpaa likes to conjecture but reality comes down to God and His preordained plan that He is unfolding continually every nanosecond of every day. God loves every guy, gal and kid whose name He recorded in His Lambs Book of Life – which He did before He created planet Earth. God hates every guy, gal and kid whose name He did not record in His Lambs Book of Life – which He knew that He would do before He created planet Earth. God purposely established on planet Earth a polarized populace of specially chosen and specially elected guy, gals and kids who He has prompted, is prompting and will prompt through Himself – as God the Spirit, to recognize Jesus – as God the Son, as their Lord and Savior and guys, gals and kids who were, are being and will be tasked by Satan to dupe God’s specially elected guys, gals and kids to sin.
Malachi 1 (587)