“‘I have loved you,’ says the LORD. But you say, ‘How have you loved us?’” Malachi 1:2a
I remember coming home from camp when I was 18. Jesus saved me the week after graduating from high school at a Young Life camp called Wildhorse Canyon in Middle-of-Nowhere, Oregon. I have never been on such a high in my life! I felt close to Jesus, I felt the need to tell everyone I knew about Jesus, and I felt loved by Jesus. Most of us have a story of a time when we felt exceptionally close to Jesus.
But as great as these times are . . . they go away. When they do, we are left longing for that feeling again. Sometimes our emotions lead us to feel far from Jesus. Sometimes circumstances lead us to believe that he doesn’t care for us or love us anymore.
The Israelites of Malachi’s day experienced these same feelings. They were held in Babylonian captivity for 70 years. But then God did something huge! He raised up a leader who would deliver them back to Israel. Just like coming home from camp, when they returned from Babylon, they felt a certain closeness to God: they were thrilled to worship him because he had just shown his love for them by saving them and bringing them home.
What we see next in the story, as told in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, is a nation that worships God like never before. They rebuild the Temple and the city of Jerusalem, rebuild the walls around it, and then have a worship service where Ezra preaches all day (literally) and the people repent and fall on their faces and praise God. They feel close to God! They feel loved by God!
But then something happens. What happens is exactly what you would expect to happen: the excitement wears off.
About 50 years after all this excitement, Israel feels as though God hasn’t shown up for a while and they conclude that God doesn’t love them anymore. “‘I have loved you,’ says the LORD. But you say, ‘How have you loved us?’” (Malachi 1:2a, emphasis mine) What audacity Israel has, accusing God of not loving them after he created them, redeemed them from Egyptian bondage, and delivered them from Babylonian captivity! Their sentiment is normal, though. They don’t feel loved. All of us can, not only relate with these feelings, but many of us feel this way right now.
But look at God’s reply: “Yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert” (Malachi 1:2b–3, emphasis mine). Israel comes from the line of Jacob, and God takes them back to Jacob to remind them of how much he loves them. He takes them back to Genesis 25, where God chose to love and save Jacob, not because Jacob deserved it—in fact he and his brother Esau were not even born yet—but because God chose to show grace to him. God’s answer to Israel’s feelings of doubt and abandonment is simple: “Remember what I have done for you!”
If you are like the Israelites of Malachi’s day and feeling far from God’s love:
- Remember that he died a horrific death for you.
- Remember that he chose to save you out of his grace and nothing else.
- Remember that he is no farther away from you now than the last time you felt close to him.
Ryan Welsh is a pastoral resident at the Downtown Bellevue church. Stay tuned for a follow-up devotional in Malachi from Ryan in coming weeks.
