{"id":7823,"date":"2021-09-27T06:38:12","date_gmt":"2021-09-27T11:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/?p=7823"},"modified":"2021-08-25T18:56:49","modified_gmt":"2021-08-25T23:56:49","slug":"devotional-on-malachi-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-malachi-12\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Malachi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure id=\"attachment_15596\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15596\" style=\"width: 960px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/100_2595.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/100_2595-1024x577.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"541\" class=\"size-large wp-image-15596\" srcset=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/100_2595-1024x577.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/100_2595-300x169.jpg 300w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/100_2595-768x432.jpg 768w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/100_2595-1536x865.jpg 1536w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/100_2595.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15596\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 &#8211; Along the road to Moab, UT<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nThe challenge of living in the level ground days<br \/>\nMalachi 1: Worship of God is no longer a priority.<br \/>\nAnyone who\u2019s gone through significant weight loss will tell you that the hard part of a diet isn&#8217;t the \u201ccut-back-on-the-calories\u201d weight loss phase.  Instead, it\u2019s the maintenance phase.  At that time, the individual moves from trying to lose weight to living a healthy lifestyle that doesn\u2019t result in regaining the weight that was lost.  The problem is that there are constant temptations to give in a little here and a little there.  Once one starts down that road the end result is a return to the former state of things.  The people Malachi speaks to are at a cross roads.  They\u2019re secure and comfortable.  The work of rebuilding the Temple was finished by their parents and grandparents.  Now, it falls on them to live a spiritually healthy lifestyle as an every day people of God.  Frankly, they aren\u2019t doing a very good job of it.  When they bring an animal to offer to the Lord, they&#8217;ve fallen into the habit of bringing one that they don\u2019t want anyway.  Worship, in general, is drifting to a lower and lower priority in their lives.  They aren\u2019t back at the stage of their idol-worshiping, baby-sacrificing ancestors, but, without even recognizing it, they\u2019re gradually drifting away from God.  It doesn\u2019t take a big effort to connect the dots from this to my own life.  I don\u2019t hope a crisis will come to my life to remind me of my priorities, but, here on the level ground of life, I want to live a healthy, day-to-day spiritual lifestyle.<br \/>\nTake Away: Living for the Lord on the common days of life has challenges of its own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The challenge of living in the level ground days Malachi 1: Worship of God is no longer a priority. Anyone who\u2019s gone through significant weight loss will tell you that the hard part of a diet isn&#8217;t the \u201ccut-back-on-the-calories\u201d weight loss phase. Instead, it\u2019s the maintenance phase. At that time, the individual moves from trying [&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":[141,269,342,863,1035],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7823"}],"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=7823"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15597,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7823\/revisions\/15597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}