Know God: Father to Be Honored & Revered

“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?’” (Malachi 1:6)

Interesting passage. We always think of the Love of the Father, but we do not always think of the honor and reverence toward the Father. In this passage of the book of Malachi, the Lord rebukes His priests for not showing honor and reverence toward Him as a Father and Master.

There were several areas that He addressed throughout the book of Malachi.

1.  Heart position lacking honor and reverence.
2. Offering the leftover and unwanted portions as tithes and offerings
3. Fully withholding tithes
4.  Forsaking their wives and children, divorce, unfaithfulness in the family.

And there were several promises and consequences if those things changed or did not change.

And the prayers of the priests were not accepted, because these heart positions and actions were not changed. God even said basically in a paraphrase, “I see your tears, but I will pay no attention to them…” because the actions were not reflecting the right heart posture of honor and reverence toward God.

Now, this may seem heavy for many reading it, and it is. But as we looked in the previous session at Hebrews 4 – the loving Father who corrects – this is all the one and same Person, who is doing this. He loves us, but part of His love toward us is pruning and refining us. And if we are submissive and humble ourselves before Him, we will be changed and we will become more like Him – holy as He is holy.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding the knowledge of God (Proverbs 2:1-6). If we want to know God, then we must have a healthy fear of Him. This is not the ungodly fear spoken of in I John 4, but the holy, godly, fear of the Lord that shows honor and reverence to Him and is aware that He is much higher and bigger than us.

Scripture: “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?’” (Malachi 1:6)

Prayer: Turn this passage into a dialogue with God. Ask Him in your own words if there is any place in your life where you have “despised His name” or have not showed honor and reverence to His name.

Listen: Pause and see if anything comes to your mind. Maybe there is something even from one of the things that God had rebuked the priests for.

Repent (Confess/Turn): If there is anything that comes up in your heart that you feel you have done wrong or that you have not honored the Lord in, then confess that to Him by telling Him and asking Him for forgiveness. Ask Him if there is anything you can do to make it right (for example: paying tithes, restoring relationships with family), etc.

Repentance means to stop going in the direction you are going and completely turn in the opposite direction. So, if you have confessed and repented in an area, then ask the Lord how you can replace that action or heart position with a new one that shows Him honor and reverence.

Write: Write these things down, and keep a record of them. Make concrete goals and action steps and set certain times that you will go back and visit them and realign yourself to them.

Implementing the Five-Fold Ministry: Fathers Releasing Sons

Before looking at strategies and programs for implementing the five-fold ministry, it is necessary to implant foundational principles at the root of the process for the development to actually work. Another foundational principle that is necessary for the five-fold ministry to work is that of fathers releasing sons who become fathers.

One huge area lacking in our society is that of fathers who know how to call forth a younger generation and release them into what God has called them to do. Although God can come and transform the existing church structure, many people become set in their ways, making it difficult to make a new definition to old ways of doing things. However, the best way to transform a culture is for those fathers in the older generation who have seen the wrong ways of doing things, to impart their wisdom and anointing to the next generation and release them to go farther than they did.

The problem is two-fold. First, many older people where never fathered themselves, and do not know how to properly be fathers. Second, many young people are rebellious against authority and want to usurp the authority of the older generation rather than learn from them.

However, God’s design was for the older generation to pave the way for the younger generation and create a new, higher foundation for the young ones to walk on than what they had when they were young. Furthermore, His design is for the young ones to walk on that old foundation and build on it, rather than tear it down and move to another place to build.

In the previous teaching on Love & Service, we looked at the verse where Paul was speaking of Timothy as being the only one who was like-minded and served as a son serves a Father (Phil. 2:19-22). Even in Paul’s day, he was looking to raise up sons who would care for the Church as much as he did—and even in his day, it was lacking.

Not only did Paul raise up a son in Timothy who would serve and love the Church, but he raised up a son who also became a father in the church (I Cor. 4:14-17). God is not looking for sons who drain the life out of the older generation to take what they need for themselves. He is looking for sons who are so thankful for being called sons that they—in turn—call forth others as sons.

Also, God is looking for fathers who call their “children” into the identity and callings that are over their lives. A father who is secure in the love of His heavenly Father can see the God-given destiny on a person and call them forth into what God has called them to do.

Implementing the five-fold ministry cannot be a sterile process learned from a book or manual. It must be birthed. It must be birthed in prayer and birthed in lives. This takes labor and it takes trying and failing. It also takes learning from the mistakes of the older generations—and also learning from their successes. We must have the hearts of fathers turned to children and children to the fathers in order for the five-fold ministry to work in the Church.

The Father & Fear of the Lord in Malachi

Lately, I have been alternating between reading Ephesians & reading Malachi quite a bit. It is interesting because both books reveal the Father in various ways, but one reveals the love of the Father & the other one reveals the honor & reverence required toward the Father--the Fear of the Lord.

It is necessary for us to see both dimensions of the Father in a healthy way. The word "fear" as in the fear of the Lord primarily means "honor, reverence, awe." The Hebrew word used for fear is yire & it also connotes other dimensions of fear as well, but this is because it involves real human emotions--the soulish kind of fear. However, the pure fear of the Lord is clean & involves only the spiritual sense of the word--awe, reverence, honor.

Twice in Malachi, the Lord rebukes the priests for not honoring the Lord as a father. He repremands them for not taking care of their wives, for leaving their children, for divorce, & for despising marriage. He admonishes them to come back to the Fear of the Lord & ends with turning the hearts of the Fathers to the children & children to the Fathers.

The Fear of the Lord & the Love of God are both necessary elements in a correct view of God. Try alternating reading Ephesians & Malachi this week & noting every instance the Father is mentioned. Also note when the Fear of the Lord or Love of God is mentioned. Ask God to reveal the Father to you. It only takes around 20 to 30 minutes to read each book.

Devo 68: A Covenant of Life & Peace

Devo 68: A Covenant of Life and Peace October 14, 2010

“My covenant was with him (Levi), one of life and peace, and I gave them to him that he might fear me; and so he feared me and was reverent before My name. The law of Truth was in his mouth and injustice was not found on his lips. He walked with Me in peace and equity, and turned many away from iniquity. For the lips of a priest should keep knowledge, and people should seek the law from his mouth; For he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.”
Malachi 2:5-7

In this passage in Malachi, the Lord is addressing the backslidden and careless states of the priests of Israel during this time period. The Lord was stating that the covenant He gave to Levi was one of “life and peace.” Levi was the tribe that Aaron and his sons came out of and they were the first priests of Israel. The Lord promised that this tribe would be His priesthood, and through Moses, the Lord gave them many instructions to follow so that the Lord’s name would be feared and reverenced among the people. The covenant was put into place not to allow for carelessness and false grace to ensue, but for the Fear of the Lord and holiness to become a part of their lives.

The problem, however, is that over and over again it was the priests (and judges, and kings) who led the people astray. The Lord was constantly calling them back to holiness. The book of Malachi was the last book written in the Old Testament, just before the “400 years of silence” called the “Intertestamental Period,” or the time of the Maccabean Revolt in Israel. This last book was a call—primarily to the priesthood, to come back to holiness and the law of the Lord and stop leading people astray.

Some of the foremost accusations revolved around the degradation of marriage, marrying daughters of other gods, adultery, divorce, and not taking care of wives, orphans, widows and children. The Lord warned the priests that He would not hear a man’s prayers who abandoned his wife for a newer model. He also said that He would send a prophet who would turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children and the children back to the fathers, otherwise He would smite the land with a curse. Unfornately, the Lord ended the very last sentence of the Holy Scriptures with the word “curse.” Four hundred years of silence followed that last word. Now days, Jews will not even finish the book of Malachi like it is written because they dislike the last word being curse, so they reread verse 5 at the end of their liturgy practices.

The problem was not just the outward behavior of the priests, but it was way deeper than that. They had no fear of the Lord. They did not honor or respect Him—Creator of the universe, Father of all, and yet they dishonored Him and disregarded His name as though He did not exist.
Unfortunately, these same symptoms are rampant in our society today—and throughout the world. However, we can still take the book of Malachi and apply it to our lives and ask the Lord to change us and make us Holy priests before Him. I Peter 2:9 says that we are “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood.” Under the new covenant, they are no longer only certain ones who are priests, but now the identity of EVERY BELIEVER is a priest.

A priest is someone who stands before the Lord in worship and intercession. Worship is adoring Him and telling Him how beautiful He is and intercession is praying what He tells you to pray. Intercession is prayer on behalf of someone or something else. You can actually intercede for yourself as well, but the idea is that you are an “intercessor” or someone who is a voice for someone else. Jesus was the ultimate intercessor who lived and died for the people. He was our ultimate High Priest who sympathized with our weakness and now we can boldly approach the throne of God as intercessors and priests (Heb. 4).

Intercession and Communion are to different expressions of prayer but they both revolve around friendship and dialogue with God. The amazing thing about the new covenant is that now we do not have to go into a temple made with hands, but we can have fellowship or communion with a God who lives INSIDE US! He is Christ in us, the hope of glory (Col. 1:27).

Romans 8 is a classic passage that speaks of the indwelling Holy Spirit and His relationship with us in prayer and intercession. See, the Lord wants to make us 24/7 houses of prayer on the inside! In Romans 8:4, Paul says that a life in the Spirit is “life and peace.” I believe He is referring back to this “covenant of life and peace” God made with Levi. As long as Levi was walking in the covenant of God, He had life and peace.

As long as justice was on His lips and he was walking in peace and equity, and turning people from sin, Levi was walking in life and peace. As soon as he stepped outside that covenant however, and used the grace he was given as permission for sin and carelessness, he stepped outside of God’s covering. The grace given of “life and peace” was for the furthering of holiness, not for disregarding the Lord and forgetting about a relationship with Him.

It is the same for us to learn how to walk in the Spirit and not fulfill the lust of the flesh (Gal. 5:16). God has given us the Spirit so that we can walk in the priesthood of all believers and be in constant communion with Him (John 15) and constant intercession for others (Romans 8:26). Paul says that we do not know how to pray as we should, but that the Spirit will help us in our weakness and will intercede for us with groanings too deep for words (Romans 8:26).

The Lord gives us the same grace (or ability) to walk in the priestly covenant of life and peace that He gave the priests of Levi. He made each one of us to be messengers with the law of God written on our hearts and lips. Even if we are not Bible scholars at all, the Holy Spirit who is called the Spirit of Truth will come and teach us all things and bring everything He has taught us tom remembrance (John 14:26). Even if we are not able to spend long hours in a prayer room, the Holy Spirit will give us the grace for prayer and worship so that we are a walking, talking, living breathing house of prayer where God is worshipped in Spirit and truth from every place in the world (John 4).

So, let us take up that life and peace and enter into our identity as priests of the Holy God. Let us ask Him to truly give us the Fear of the Lord that enables us to live lives of holiness and dedication to Him. Let us lead others into the law of the Lord and become living houses of prayer.

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Amanda

©Copyright Amanda Rich 2010