The Year You Come Back

For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. From the days of your fathers 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. —  Malachi 3:6-7

The bottom line of this text is that God wants men to return to him because he never changes. God's righteousness, judgment, and desire for us have never changed since the dawn of time. The problem is — we change. Mankind changes.

This happens because we believe we can achieve better without God. That as we progress, we will get better and better. We can be spiritually wiser than we were in former times. But this is not the case. This is never the case. We're as broken right now as those were before us. Malachi explicitly states this. We are as broken now as we were in "the days of our fathers." Thus we must learn we are not in a state of spiritual progression but a state of spiritual depravity. Progressive theological ideologies will never save humanity. God does. We have to embrace the fact that we are persistently unrighteous, and we need God's unchanging righteousness. Therefore we must return to him, not the other way around, which is what the people of Israel assumed. They assumed God had left the building. But God never left. They did.

For us, this is one of the dangers of our time. We think God has left us because of all that is happening in our world. But God has not left us. We have left him.

So maybe as we close off this year and begin a new one, you want to make today and this coming year "The Year of the Lord." Or rather a year you return to Lord. That is a choice you can make right now between you and him. And you can declare it right now to him. If this is something you want to do, I want you to know the promise of Malachi 3:7. If you return to him, He promises to return to you.

If you are ready to do that today. Just write below in the comments: I'm Coming Back.

ASK THIS: Are you ready to come back?

DO THIS: If ready, write below in the comments: I'm Coming Back.

PRAY THIS: God, I am coming back to you.

PLAY THIS: Coming Back.