Spend time in prayer and silence with God asking Him to meet with you and speak to you.
Bible Reading
“See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to His temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty. But who can endure the day of His coming? Who can stand when He appears? For He will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; He will purify the Levites and refine them like Gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years. “So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me,” says the Lord Almighty.
– Malachi 3:1-5
Devotion
Here in one verse we have two messengers. The first messenger who is to go before and to prepare the way is John the Baptist. He will be the next prophet that God will raise up 400 years later. The second is “the messenger of the covenant,” the Lord Jesus Christ. As Malachi closes out the Old Testament, he writes concerning the next two messengers that God would send. The picture of Jesus here is a reference to His second coming not His first advent. In Malachi’s prophecy, Jesus is not coming in grace as the Redeemer, but as Judge and the One who will establish His kingdom and put down the rebellion that is on earth.
The Big Question
How does the accuracy of God’s Word fortify your faith? Considering all that is going on in the world today, how does the promise of Christ’s second coming encourage you? How does the promise of Christ’s second coming address the issues of Malachi’s day?
End your time in prayer and silence reflecting on what God revealed to you today.