You have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you say, “How have we wearied him?” By saying, “All who do evil are good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?”

See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.  But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?

For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.  Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.

Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.

For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, have not perished.  Ever since the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, “How shall we return?”  Malachi 2:17-3:7

As Lori and I have traveled through life we have encountered many obstacles along the path, and we often wonder what God is preparing us to do in the future.  We are each being refined, molded, purified, transformed for His service, and often the process involves pain.  I have heard a quote attributed to John Piper, “A thousand sorrows prepares a man to preach.”  We are each called to go and make disciples, to be ready with an explanation for the hope we have in Christ Jesus, to serve as God’s light to the world, to minister.  While it is wonderful that God is molding, refining and purifying us for His glorious service, the process is often agonizing.

Many look out in the world, see chaos and respond by praying for revival because we desperately need to be revived in every possible way, individually and collectively.  Prayer is essential, but I fear at times we begin by asking God to change others so they conform with our image of righteousness, rather than asking God to purify our hearts so we conform with His.  The word “revival” describes God transforming chaos to order through spiritual awakening.  The process happens one heart at a time and it must begin with each of us.  As I pray, I know it begins with me.  As you pray, please know it also begins with you. 

Malachi’s prophecy was directed to Israel and priests in the line of Levi; however, it tells us a great deal about our human condition, our misdirected tendencies, and God.  We are prone to turning away from Him.  Our vision is cloudy, our knowledge is incomplete, and we are influenced by the evil world around us, so we confuse good and evil, and we interpret God’s patience as approval.  Christ Jesus offers new life and He refines, purifies and sanctifies hearts, and we continually need His revival, His cleansing, His holiness.  

Revival is not a one-time event.  We need His renewal continuously.  We need to continuously seek Him, desire Him, surrender to Him, and engage with Him through prayer, through His holy word, and through service.  Christ Jesus refines and purifies us continuously for the rest of our lives as we engage in relationship with Him.

Through Malachi, God explains that He is unchanging.  He is true, faithful and merciful.  We on the other hand are fickle, our faith wavers, and we rebel.  Some confuse good and evil, and in their confusion claim that God delights in evildoers, and this exhausts God.  Malachi explains that God grows weary of people misrepresenting Him.  God presents Himself to us in glorious ways – through His majestic creation, through His holy word, through His answers to prayers, through His miraculous healing touch, through loving relationships and other revelations of His glory – yet many misunderstand and misrepresent who He is. 

We pray that His mercy exceeds His justice because in our rebellion we deserve His wrath.  Through His holy grace, we experience the benefit of His patience; however, if we misinterpret patience as approval, we may fail to see who He is, miss out on the foundation of morality, and fail to absorb His moral compass, causing us to risk repeating failures described by Malachi – mistaking evil for good and believing that He delights in evil.  Even with the myriad of reasons He has to strike us from the earth, God longs for relationship with us, but we must not take His history of mercy for granted.  He is patient, but He grows weary of our rebellion and we are each ultimately judged.  

Peter describes the body of believers as “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).  As believers, we belong to Him; we each serve in the capacity of priest; we are called to proclaim God’s mighty acts of grace; and we do so together as His body, His church, the Body of Christ.

Through Malachi we see that Christ Jesus refines and purifies His priests to righteousness, making them holy.  He compares the process to refining gold and silver, which involves heating a compound to the boiling point of individual substances, allowing each impurity to boil away while leaving the solid substance behind.  As His priests are transformed by holiness, their offerings are pleasing to God.  

God’s holy word calls us to offer ourselves as holy, living sacrifices to Him, explaining that this offering is spiritual worship (see Romans 12:1).  How is Christ Jesus purifying you?  What are you experiencing as He works to allow you to release impurities from your life, drawing you closer to Him and His holiness? Ideally, we continuously breathe in His Holy Spirit, seek His holy transformation, and advance along the path toward God and His holiness while offering ourselves to Him.  

We pray for revival.  Christ Jesus purifies, refines, revives, revitalizes and fills each of us.  As He does, we continue serving out in the world as His royal priesthood, as His servants, as His transformed spirits illuminating the darkness around us.