Skip to main content

You've Got Something On Your Face

Why Me!?!?

Going through the Old Testament prophet Malachi recently, I found that God is not beyond disgusting to make a point.

“And now, you priests, this warning is for you. If you do not listen, and if you do not resolve to honor my name,” says the Lord Almighty, “I will send a curse on you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not resolved to honor me.

“Because of you I will rebuke your descendants; I will smear on your faces the dung from your festival sacrifices, and you will be carried off with it." ~Malachi 2:1-3


I don' think I need to add much to make this story interesting. Sure, I have many gross poo stories from when my kids were younger, but nothing that matches this. God threatened to smear dung (poo for the less sophisticated) on the faces of the priests.

What? What?

To offer a bit of background, when priests would offer sacrifices, the excrement of the sacrifice would be removed and taken outside the city to be burned. You know, because who wants that when you're roasting a sacrifice? So God is taking the priestly functions away from them, since they don't seem to want to do it the right anyway, and removing them with the rest of the waste.

Why would God do such a thing? "Because you have not resolved to honor me." Oh, I guess God takes this pretty seriously. This is actually the message Malachi has over and again in his four short chapters. The Israelites didn't seem to understand. But then again, neither do we.

We read all over scripture how God is jealous for His glory and His Name and His fame. We should be too.    Otherwise, when the world comes to look, we'll have a lot more than egg on our face. If we choose not to revere God's Name and to live as a royal priesthood should, then we will continue to be embarrassed by how our words and our actions do not line up.

This life is about God. Do you want to make it about anything else?


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Accountable

I recently officiated a wedding. The ceremony was simple, lovely, and ended with another couple professing to keep the covenant of marriage. But it all started with a clarification...from me. At our first premarital counseling session, as I have done with every couple I have agreed to marry, I clarified a couple of matters. First, I officiate Christian weddings, where both spouses-to-be are professing Christians. I firmly believe that marriage is difficult enough, without adding disagreements about God into the mix. Second, as a minister of Jesus Christ, I believe the pastor’s role in a wedding is to represent the blessing of God on that union. So we have several sessions of premarital counseling where we discuss married life. It’s not that I have this imaginary card in my head, with a picture of me on the front and my stats on the back. (You know, like a baseball card.) Ok, I do picture cards. Pastor cards! And being a competitive guy, I want my stats to look good. The number of coupl...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Facebook Maybe

Granted, I'm a pastor. I have Type-A tendencies. Ok, my tendencies border on freakish OCD behavior patterns, but... Few things bother me more than the Facebook 'maybe'. I suppose I could go on and on about the grey areas of our society and the refusal of people to accept absolute standards. I could discuss the great need of people to accept that what is wrong for one person is likely wrong for everyone. I should certainly be concerned about mentioning that someone might have sin in their life. But I don't believe the Facebook 'maybe' is quite sin. Perhaps if I were coming up with new sins, I would add this to the list. But alas... Some might think the Facebook 'maybe' did not exist prior to the Internet, but they would be wrong. When I was in high school and asked a girl out on a date, I would normally be told that if they had no other plans, if nobody else called them, if there was nothing good on television and their hair did not need washing, then per...
5 comments
Read more

Indescribable

Holy cow! I only thought I was amazed by our universe. But after reading Indescribable  by Louie Giglio and Matt Redman, now I am seriously overwhelmed by space. From the size of stars to the immense gaps in space between objects, I am in way over my head. But why create stretches of the universe that will never be seen? Why be content for distant galaxies to go completely unnoticed for thousands and thousands of years? It is a mark of extravagance in the heart of our Creator God. God is not like us.  Of course, when you start talking about how big everything is, you have to discuss how small we are. Maybe, just maybe, we’re not that big after all. But it’s not for lack of trying, is it? In the early days, people tried to build a tower that would reach the heavens. Talk about self-confidence. And, in every generation since, we have worked to elevate our names and build things as if we could really garner fame that lasts. I absolutely love that idea.  Th...
Post a Comment
Read more