{"id":7821,"date":"2021-09-26T06:37:44","date_gmt":"2021-09-26T11:37:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/?p=7821"},"modified":"2021-08-25T18:53:50","modified_gmt":"2021-08-25T23:53:50","slug":"devotional-on-malachi-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-malachi-11\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Malachi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure id=\"attachment_15591\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15591\" style=\"width: 960px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/100_2555.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/100_2555-1024x577.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"541\" class=\"size-large wp-image-15591\" srcset=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/100_2555-1024x577.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/100_2555-300x169.jpg 300w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/100_2555-768x432.jpg 768w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/100_2555-1536x865.jpg 1536w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/100_2555.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15591\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 &#8211; Mesa Verde National Park, CO<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nThe theology of the tee-shirt<br \/>\nMalachi 1: God said, \u201cI love you.\u201d<br \/>\nI saw a shirt with this message on it: \u201cJesus loves you&#8230;but then again, he loves everybody.\u201d  The Lord\u2019s first word to Israel through Malachi is \u201cI love you.\u201d  His second word, contrary to the wisdom of the tee-shirt, is that the Lord hates Esau (speaking of the nation made up of Esau\u2019s descendants, Edom).  Both of these concepts ought to get our attention.  God loves people to the point that he pays an enormous price to reconcile people back to himself.  At the same time, those who oppose God\u2019s people are hated by God.  Through the years, Edom has been the enemy of Israel.  When possible, Edom opposed it\u2019s \u201cbrother-nation\u201d openly.  Otherwise, Edom cheered when Israel fell on hard times.  Because they insisted on being enemies of God\u2019s people they made themselves into enemies of God.  The Lord\u2019s love for Israel is, therefore, not a warm, fuzzy kind of \u201cGod loves everybody.\u201d  Instead, it\u2019s love with an edge on it; love that says to Israel, \u201cBecause I love you I make demands on you.\u201d  It\u2019s love that also says to the enemies of Israel, \u201cIf you mess with Israel you mess with me.\u201d  Today, through his Son, Jesus, the Lord invites outsiders to join his family and thereby become heirs to all the benefits of being a part of the people God loves.  It\u2019s a terrific invitation and one every person can, and should, accept.  As you consider responding to that offer, it might be wise to read these opening declarations from Malachi and be reminded that there\u2019s more to the \u201cJesus loves you\u201d message than is stated on the theology of the tee-shirt.<br \/>\nTake Away: We\u2019re wise to remember that this \u201cGod is love\u201d theology is theology with an edge on it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The theology of the tee-shirt Malachi 1: God said, \u201cI love you.\u201d I saw a shirt with this message on it: \u201cJesus loves you&#8230;but then again, he loves everybody.\u201d The Lord\u2019s first word to Israel through Malachi is \u201cI love you.\u201d His second word, contrary to the wisdom of the tee-shirt, is that the Lord [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1516,6,7],"tags":[141,473,1082],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7821"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7821"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15593,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7821\/revisions\/15593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}