{"id":7827,"date":"2021-09-29T06:39:55","date_gmt":"2021-09-29T11:39:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/?p=7827"},"modified":"2021-08-25T18:59:18","modified_gmt":"2021-08-25T23:59:18","slug":"devotional-on-malachi-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-malachi-14\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Malachi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure id=\"attachment_15601\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15601\" style=\"width: 960px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/P5019247.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/P5019247-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" class=\"size-large wp-image-15601\" srcset=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/P5019247-1024x768.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/P5019247-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/P5019247-768x576.jpg 768w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/P5019247-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/P5019247.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15601\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 &#8211; Horsethief Campground &#8211; Moab, UT<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nWho gets to define marriage?<br \/>\nMalachi 2: God, not you, made marriage.<br \/>\nDuring the exile their ancestors clung together, maintaining their national identity even in a diverse society.  Now that Israel\u2019s been reestablished in it\u2019s own land the people have let their guard down and are breaking God\u2019s command that they be a people set apart as his very own.  They\u2019ve married outside their own nation.  They shouldn\u2019t be surprised that when they blatantly disobey God that he withdraws his blessings from them.  Beyond that, even those who haven\u2019t mixed with other nations are treating marriage differently than God intends, making it relatively easy to toss a marriage aside if it suits them.  Through his prophet the Lord declares that he\u2019s the one who designed marriage and he hasn\u2019t given them the authority to redefine what it\u2019s all about.  He tells them that he \u201cmade marriage\u201d and that \u201chis Spirit inhabits even the smallest details of marriage.\u201d  Then he adds, \u201cI hate divorce.\u201d  I think the Lord\u2019s speaking to the whole institution here rather than to individual situations.  He isn\u2019t denying the possibility of divorce in a specific situation so much as he\u2019s stating his opposition to a culture that takes marriage vows lightly.  Also, it goes without saying that the Lord insists that he\u2019s the one who defined marriage and, as this passage says, an outcome of marriage is to be \u201cchildren.\u201d  While there are circumstances in which children can\u2019t be the product of a marriage at least the potential is to be there.  That settles it.  Marriage is between man and woman and no majority of voters or federal court or anyone else can define it otherwise.  Don\u2019t ever doubt it: God takes this kind of stuff very seriously.<br \/>\nTake Away: If we want to understand what marriage is all about we need to start with the Creator of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Who gets to define marriage? Malachi 2: God, not you, made marriage. During the exile their ancestors clung together, maintaining their national identity even in a diverse society. Now that Israel\u2019s been reestablished in it\u2019s own land the people have let their guard down and are breaking God\u2019s command that they be a people set [&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":[141,280,442,699],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7827"}],"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=7827"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15602,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7827\/revisions\/15602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}