Malachi 1:6

God deserves our very best, the first fruits of all that He has provided for us. 

He deserves our very best worship, our best tithe and offerings, the very best of our talents to be used for His glory. To offer Him anything less is idolatry. 

idolatry |īˈdälətrē|

noun

worship of idols.

• extreme admiration, love, or reverence for something or someone other than God.

Here the Lord uses truisms: A father and a master can expect honor from those beneath them, but God was not receiving the honor due Him.

This final book of the Old Testament is about the error of forgetting the love of God. When people forget God’s love, it affects their attitudes, home, and worship. With God’s love and loyalty in doubt, sacred commitments no longer remain sacred. God sent Malachi to rouse the people from their spiritual stupor and to exhort them to return to the living God. 

The promised Messiah was the only One who could bridge that widening chasm between the people and their God.

Malachi 1:6

⁶ “A son honors his father,

And a servant his master.

If then I am the Father,

Where is My honor?

And if I am a Master,

Where is My reverence?

Says the Lord of hosts

To you priests who despise My name.

Yet you say, ‘In what way have we despised Your name?’

⁸But now, O Lord, You are our Father; We are the clay, and You our potter; And all we are the work of Your hand. 

Isaiah 64:8

⁹They shall come with weeping, And with supplications I will lead them. I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters, In a straight way in which they shall not stumble; For I am a Father to Israel, And Ephraim is My firstborn. 

Jeremiah 31:9

⁴⁶ “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say? 

Luke 6:46

¹²“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you. 

Exodus 20:12