A Look at Malachi 3 for Today’s Believer: How Can We Really Rob God?
6 “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. 7 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. But you say, ‘How shall we return?’ 8 Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions.”
— Malachi 3:6-8
How Did God’s People Rob Him in Malachi’s Day?
In His effort to bring His people back to Himself the Lord asked, “Will a man rob God?” (Malachi 3:8). And when His people questioned His question, the Lord answered how the robbery was accomplished: “In tithes and offerings.”
It was a straightforward response; certainly, there was no wiggle room to contest the charge. The chosen people had robbed the invisible God through the visible act of tithing and giving.
Think with me on that for a minute: God’s people were charged with stealing from a God, who is Spirit, by not giving a tangible gift.
How can that which is visible steal from an invisible God?
How Do We Rob God Today?
Maybe another question would be, “How can His people really rob God?”
My answer: Not by simply ‘taking’ things from Him, but by taking ourselves away from His commands.
The Lord is always more interested in the motives behind our acts than the acts alone.
When His people ‘take’ themselves out from under the commands of God, they in turn don’t willingly do those things God desires. And thus, they rob Him of what He wants to do for them.
When His people chose not to give as He commanded, they stopped the blessing that came through obeying that ordinance. This is witnessed by the blessing which would have come through their obedience in tithing and giving—the windows of heaven would open, and He would pour out a blessing that could not be contained (see Malachi 3:10).
In Malachi’s day, obedience to God’s ordinances would not have brought the charge of robbing God, and in Jesus’ day, Israel’s obedience to His call would have allowed Him to gather them together as a hen would her brood (see Luke 13:34). In our day, obedience will bring a blessed life (see Luke 11:28).
Thus, as a believer in Jesus Christ, to really ‘rob’ the Lord is to steal yourself away from the blessings in obedience.
Indeed, “Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams” (1 Samuel 15:22 NASB).
