Have you ever wondered if good things that you do actually make a difference? I think that it’s normal to wonder sometimes if it’s “worth it” to make the right choice, even when no one seems to notice and when those making clearly unrighteous choices seem to be passing you by.
In the third chapter of the book of Malachi in the Bible, God continues to make statements about the people, and they continue to push back. (Now, I’m not sure if this was an actual reply from the people that God had heard from them, or just an illustration of their attitudes – what they would have said when confronted with God’s challenges. However, it does reflect where the people were.)
“You have spoken arrogantly against me,” says the LORD.
“Yet you ask, ‘What have we said against you?’
“You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What do we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the LORD Almighty? But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly evildoers prosper, and even when they put God to the test, they get away with it.’ ”
Malachi 3:13-15 NIV
https://bible.com/bible/111/mal.3.13-15.NIV
I suspect that these statements of the people aren’t entirely foreign to us. I see two protests here in the people’s response. These two statements are related and maybe we have said them ourselves:
- What good does it do to serve God?
- Why do people get away with not serving God?
If you were looking at following God as a way to make everything go nice and happy, and for everything to go your way, I’m sorry, but that’s not always the way it works…at least, not in the immediate time frame that we would like.
Sometimes, we will experience trouble in this world, even when trying to obey God’s commandments, follow Jesus, and do what the Holy Spirit tells us do. It’s a fallen, broken world, and God’s plan is sometimes more complicated than us just always dancing on our own “yellow brick road”. As a corollary, sometimes sinful and rebellious behavior looks like it is paying off. However, this view we have is inherently narrow, limited by our finite existence, able to only see and comprehend a narrow slice of time and space. Those who disobey God might look like they are getting away with it, but delayed consequences don’t change the fact that justice will eventually be served.
Think about a discus thrower going through her windup, spinning in the circle to build up speed. (I had a friend in High School who was a state discus champion multiple years. In fact, I think that she also ended up getting a scholarship for her skills.) If we just focused on one image from the middle of this hypothetical video, when she was facing away from the target field, we might say that she was going the wrong way. Why would she be facing away from the target field, where the distance of the discus throw is measured?
However, when we watch the entire video, we see that this was just part of the process of a record-breaking throw (in the right direction, of course). If we didn’t have the whole sequence of events available to us, we might have gotten the wrong idea by just looking at a small snippet of it.
Perhaps our actions that show that we trust God to take care of us (rather than trusting ourselves, our money, or our belongings) are both the cause and the effect of what we really need, which is the faith that God’s got us, and that He will take good care of us if we will let Him do so. We trust that God sees the big picture – across both time and space, and across the physical and spiritual domains – and that our “frame grab” from the vast “cosmic video”, so to speak, might be giving us the wrong impression.
That faith allows us to give and serve as He calls us to, even when human knowledge suggests that we need to keep more for ourselves. And, going in the other direction, giving and serving help reinforce our faith, by continuing to show (through the blessings that we receive in return) that God does exactly what He promised in our lives when we let Him.
The first step (our stepping out in faith) may depend on us, but the second step (receiving God’s support when we trust Him) depends on Him. However, while we are imperfect and often fall short, God does not. In the words of a song sung by CeCe Winans, though, “He’s never failed me yet”.
From Sunday School lesson prepared for August 18, 2024
References:
- The Lookout, August, 2024, © 2024 Christian Standard Media.
- Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
- The College Press NIV Commentary – Minor Prophets Vol. 2 Nahum-Malachi, by Mark Allen Hahlen and Clay Alan Ham. © 2006 College Press Publishing Co.
Those Who Sin Differently 