Malachi 2:1-3 "And now, this commandment is for you, O priests. "If you do not listen, and if you do not take it to heart to give honor to My name," says the Lord of hosts, "then I will send the curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings; and indeed, I have cursed them already, because you are not taking it to heart.  "Behold, I am going to rebuke your offspring, and I will spread refuse on your faces, the refuse of your feasts; and you will be taken away with it.”   

            As we read Malachi 2, one may conclude that this message is for “priests” only or addressed to the pastors, elders, teachers of the word and to the servants only. But according to 1 Peter, every believer belongs to the royal priesthood of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:9 “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;”

            What was the burdensome message of God to His priests? For us to grow and mature as Christians, it is important to know what pleases and displeases our God. In the Old Testament, priests would teach the Torah, pray for the people and offer sacrifices for sins. Their role was to bring the people closer to God. Today, our role as priests has not changed: we are to point people to God through Jesus Christ.

            The word “blessing” and the verb “to bless,” is “barak” in Hebrew. It means “enrichment” whether physically, spiritually and materially. The opposite of the word “bless” is the word “curse”. A curse removes the blessing of enrichment” from the person and this was the fate of the priests in the verses in Malachi 2:1-3. As priests, they would study the Word and they would often teach the Word in the temples. The problem was the priests would often hear but were no longer responding to God’s revelation to them. By doing so, they were guilty of not giving honor to Him. As a result, God rebuked and cursed them because they have corrupted their calling by not applying and practicing what they were hearing from God.

            In today’s church setting, we can also be guilty of corrupting our calling as the royal priests. We may attend worship services, bible studies and hearing His Word often but we do not ‘shama’ or obey or respond just like the priests in Malachi. We may often hear but we no longer take it to heart, they just remain in our minds and end up as head knowledge.

            According to the apostle Paul, “knowledge makes you proud”. (1 Cor. 8:1) A Christian may have much biblical knowledge and yet not be spiritually transformed. We can go through the motions of hearing God’s Word but sadly, our lives are not being renewed by His Word and His Holy Spirit. The outer man may seem in order and in check but the inner man is the one decaying and no longer growing in the faith. Because we ignore and justify the sinful issues in our life and we refuse to be accountable and rebuked. Our lives become a contradiction to what we often hear and teach. It becomes evident that we are no longer growing into the attitude of Christ which is an attitude of humility and obedience. This is what burdened the heart of God. If we truly desire to honor God’s name in our life, we should not ignore or take for granted what God tells us. We have to respond to what we hear whenever and wherever He speaks to us. For us believers, it is important to always keep in mind that God’s revelation requires a response always.

            Malachi 2:8-9 "But as for you, you have turned aside from the way; you have caused many to stumble by the instruction; you have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the Lord of hosts.  So I also have made you despised and abased before all the people, just as you are not keeping My ways, but are showing partiality in the instruction.” By not keeping His ways, the Lord despised and abased the priests before the people. In Hebrew, the word despised meant ‘to be regarded as worthless’ and the word abased is ‘to humble or to humiliate or to bring low’.

            What were the priests doing that the Lord rebuked and exposed them before the people? What made them guilty of this corruption? In God’s eyes, they changed and deviated from His ways. They haggled with the truth when they presented blemished offerings which were absolutely against God’s law. They trivialized sin and did not deal with the sins of the people when they allowed mixed marriages which God totally forbids. They allowed divorce in order to please men, which God clearly hates. Hoping to make things easier for them and the people, they deviated from the truth of how God wanted to be obeyed and served. To God, this was no worship service at all. This was a clear corruption of His ways.

            In the Christian circle today, we have to be on the alert from falling into the trap of this form of corruption. How can we corrupt our calling in this manner today? How can we show partiality to God’s Word and turn aside from His ways? An example is Sunday worship. It is a joyful experience to worship God on a Sunday, but  if our life style during the rest of the week is blemished with immorality, pornography, or of selfishness and anxiety and of lips filled with sarcasm and hurtful words, then we are not keeping His ways in worshipping God. Worship is not limited to a Sunday service alone. Worship is offering all areas of our life pleasing to God 24/7.

            Malachi 2:4-7 "Then you will know that I have sent this commandment to you, that My covenant may continue with Levi, says the Lord of hosts. My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him as an object of reverence; so he revered Me, and stood in awe of My name. True instruction was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found on his lips; he walked with Me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many back from iniquity. For the lips of a priest should preserve knowledge, and men should seek instruction from his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.”

            We are commanded to pursue the holiness and godliness of Jesus Christ in how we live our lives. This is the goal of the upward call. As His true disciples, our lives should slowly be transformed to the attitude and person of our Lord and Savior. It must be described as being blameless and being right in the “eyes and ways” of God and not our ways.

            We need to put more value and importance in the “being” rather than the “doing”. This is the essence of God’s message to the priests in Malachi. Our character must be consistent with the calling we received from God. It is clear our calling from God is to reflect God’s Word in our lives by growing into Christ’s likeness and to teach His Word truthfully and accurately to His people and to the world. We are called to proclaim Jesus Christ in our way of life. Our prayer for us all is that the Lord will find us faithful to our calling from God, as His royal priesthood, today and in the generations that comes after us!