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

Studies on the Go...Genesis

To be honest, I had not heard of Studies On The Go before being offered a review copy by my god friends at Youth Worker. But since I’m always looking out for study ideas, I said yes to this opportunity. Studies On The Go by Laurie Polich-Short has 30 studies. This particular edition is on the book of Genesis. Any book of the Bible can be daunting when you’re trying to interest and impact teenagers. But Genesis increases that difficulty due to the many questions that arise on the topic of creation. On top of that, you have the many stories of questionable characters that we often call heroes of the faith. Each study comes with great questions, not mindless Sunday School questions where every answer is Jesus. They also come with an optional activity to take the lesson a step further and create true impact. Add to that a weekly plan for students to go deeper and you have a winner of a study in one little book. If all the book studies are as well done as this one, I’d ...
Post a Comment
Read more

What Are You Capable Of?

I fancy myself to be just like Batman...without the money, the cave, the vendetta, the car and the cool belt. Other than that, we're pretty much the same guy. Does it help my case that I have a boy wonder? It's my son, but I'd take him over a dude in green tights any day. I've also imagined myself to be similar to Superman...you know, but without the super strength, speed, or that thing he can do with his eyes. Oh, and I'm also not from another planet. But he was a reporter and I like to write, though that hasn't been proven much by my blog. At least, not compared to what I used to write. The first time I write this post, it sounded like an apology. But that's not really the message I want to convey. Yes, I wish I were posting more. I also wish I had super strength or a cool utility belt, but those things aren't happening right now either. Maybe some day . The truth is I have been keeping busy. I'm not sitting back, sipping lemonade. I've never c...
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