God Does Not Change

6“I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. 7Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty.

“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’

8“Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.

“But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’

“In tithes and offerings. 9You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. 10Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. 11I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the Lord Almighty. 12“Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the Lord Almighty. Malachi 3:6-12
This section is probably the most used Tithing scripture ever. I don't know that for a fact, but I think it is.  God is saying the descendants of Jacob have turned away from God's decrees. They have not kept God's decrees, his laws, his commands. God once again is asking for his people to return to him. God specifically mentions tithing and says they are robbing him when they don' tithe.  If I have learned one thing, God doesn't need my money, he owns everything to start with. All the cattle on a thousand hills are his. The Church doesn't need my money, they have a much larger budget then I have already. But God is after the heart. Where your treasure is there will your heart be also. Is your treasure in your bank account? Your bank account will show what you treasure.  I am at the end of the Old Testament, and it seems over and over again God has been trying to get his people that strayed away to come back to him. That seems to me to be the prevailing overall message in the Old Testament Prophets. It is our schoolmaster to bring us to a knowledge of Christ. God says here he does not change, his laws and his rules have not changed over the centuries. We have seen God repent and spared Nineveh, at Abraham's prayer, God spared Lot. God promises blessing upon our lives if we will turn back to him. We are under a curse and the only way to get out from under that curse is to turn to God. The fourth chapter of Malachi talks about the arrogant and evil burning as stubble. That is the curse we are under. 17“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. 18And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.  Malachi 3: 17-18  On the day when God finally acts, his treasured possession will be spared. It will be a big difference between those that serve God and those that do not. Those that served God will romp around the pasture like well-fed calves. I have seen that in a heard of cattle when calves will run and play and they are just so full of joy. That is what God is promising on the day that he acts, there will be joy in the hearts of the righteous. The evil will burn as stubble. Only God himself knows the day he will act. It is for a set time. Even Jesus at the right hand of God does not know the exact time. It is coming and over and over again God asks his people to return, all souls are his. We are his creation, he wants our hearts. Return to God while there is time. There is ultimate healing in heaven. A sister in the Lord just passed away in the last few days, she had been fighting cancer for quite a while. She is now healed and in the presence of her God. She is romping around like a well fed calf. God bless, LVZ.