Greetings,
God wants to heal our responses to Him as well as empower us to do actions in this world that reveal who He is. The Holy Spirit has come into our lives so that we will not only believe whom our heavenly Father is, but we will also believe who we are in Christ. As we respond to Him, His presence fills us up from heaven within our hearts and those blessings overflow with visible blessings from heaven in our lives. It is His presence in our lives, but it requires a response from us as God’s children. We respond to the gift of the Holy Spirit (the Messenger) with the substance of our hearts and lives. The Holy Spirit has come to establish an open heaven in our lives so that the blessings of God will come to overflowing. God’s manifest presence has come into our hearts and He is overflowing with the blessings of heaven.
Malachi 3:10 … “And try Me now in this,” Says the LORD of hosts, “If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.”
There is an open heaven! Christ’s presence in our lives is subduing the enemies of God and the enemies of who God intended us to be in our lives. When we are who are, the enemy will be destroyed and the earth will yield its true blessing.
Malachi 3:11 “And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, so that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field,” Says the LORD of hosts”
It is God’s manifest presence in our lives that destroys the devourer in our lives. We must be willing to let go of the things that are an enemy to God. We do this by receiving the Messenger of God in our hearts. The Messenger is the Holy Spirit, the one who purifies our hearts with fire and transforms our outward testimony like fuller’s soap. As this happens, the nations will recognize who we are. We are children of God!
Malachi 3:12 “And all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a delightful land,” Says the LORD of hosts.”
The Holy Spirit in our hearts is the voice that cries out “Abba, Father” from within. Christ in us is the testimony of being children of God. Christ in us empowers us to desire God our Father. This was what was missing in the day of Malachi the prophet. The priests could not see the need for serving God because they viewed Him as a hard taskmaster and not a heavenly Father who loves His children. There service to Him was for their own personal pride and need.
Malachi 3:13 “Your words have been harsh against Me,” Says the LORD, “Yet you say, ‘What have we spoken against You?’”
When we don’t know that God is a loving Father, we don’t understand our true need for Him in our lives. He is not just our Lover; He is our Father. We are His family! We are His children! When we see ourselves as merely servants and slaves we don’t understand our need for Him. We think He wants us to serve Him, but He really wants to love us. When we receive His love, we cannot help but love Him!
Malachi 3:14 You have said, “It is useless to serve God; What profit is it that we have kept His ordinance, and that we have walked as mourners before the LORD of hosts?”
The priests of the Old Covenant saw serving God as a sacrifice of pain, not a relationship of intimacy and joy. The Messenger, the Holy Spirit, has come to change our hearts and minds. He has come to heal the hardness of our souls. When we see God as anything less than Father, we try to justify our iniquities by calling the things in our lives that are not like God unchangeable. We call our pride a blessing and our wickedness not a problem before Him. We fail to understand that the family Spirit in our hearts can change the iniquities of our hearts so we become a testimony of true children of God. Not just children who are loved by God, but children who love Him and thus we are children who are transformed in our character, nature, way, power and authority to reveal the family name in the earth. This includes supernatural miracles in our spirits, souls, and bodies!
Malachi 3:15 “So now we call the proud blessed, for those who do wickedness are raised up; they even tempt God and go free.’ ”
The Holy Spirit is the sent Messenger into our hearts to change us from our natural inheritances of the flesh to become children with the supernatural inheritances of God by the power of Christ in our hearts. It is a progressively increasing process in our lives. As we are changed people, the world will recognize who God truly is and He will remember us because our first consideration is honoring our Father and revealing the family name. This is becoming like Him in our character, nature, way, power, and authority.
Malachi 3:16 Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another, and the LORD listened and heard them; so a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the LORD and who meditate on His name.
The Holy Spirit has come so that we will be the people of God. He has come so that we will be the children of God in the earth. It is a miraculous thing and proves that we are not bound by the natural inheritances of the flesh, but we are transformed by the supernatural inheritances of the Spirit.
Malachi 3:17 “They shall be Mine,” says the LORD of hosts, “On the day that I make them My jewels. And I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.”
It is about the testimony of the family name. He loves us, but He wants to make us a testimony of Him as His treasures in the earth. It is about revealing God as a Father. Not a Father because He loves us, but a Father because He loves us and He gives us His inheritance. He gives us His character, nature, way, power, and authority in all things. As this happens it will be clear who is righteous and who is wicked.
Malachi 3:18 Then you shall again discern between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him.
It will be clear who seeks God as Father and who seeks themselves. It will be clear who merely seeks to be blessed by God and who seeks to become the blessing of God in the earth. It will be clear who wants God to be the God of the people and who wants to become known as the people of God. The Messenger, the Holy Spirit, is the power of Christ in us that can change the world. He is like a refiner’s fire and a fuller’s soap in our lives.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
