Malachi 3:6-12: a reflection

6“For I, the LORD, don’t change; therefore you, sons of Jacob, are not consumed. 7From the days of your fathers you have turned away from my ordinances and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD of Armies. “But you say, ‘How shall we return?’ 8Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me! But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In tithes and offerings. 9You are cursed with the curse; for you rob me, even this whole nation. 10Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house, and test me now in this,” says the LORD of Armies, “if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there will not be enough room for. 11I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast its fruit before its time in the field,” says the LORD of Armies. 12“All nations shall call you blessed, for you will be a delightful land,” says the LORD of Armies.

Through Malachi, God speaks a word of both stability and invitation. For I the LORD do not change, he says; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. And then the invitation: Return to me, and I will return to you. God's unchangeableness is named as the reason his wayward people have not been destroyed, and as the ground for a fresh call to come back to him.

Notice the connection God draws: I do not change; therefore you are not consumed. God's people had been faithless, turning away from his ways for generations. By all rights they might have been destroyed. But they were not, and the reason God gives is his own unchanging character: I do not change. Because God's faithfulness, his mercy, his commitment to his people, does not waver or run out, his people are not consumed despite their faithlessness. His unchangeableness is their security.

That is a deep comfort. Our faithfulness wavers; we turn away, drift, fail, and if God's mercy depended on our constancy, we would be consumed. But God does not change. His faithfulness and mercy are constant, unwavering, not running out with our failures. And so his call is always open: Return to me, and I will return to you. Because God does not change, you are not consumed, and you can always return. However far you have drifted, the unchanging God still says, return to me, and I will return to you. Rest in his unchangeableness, and come back to the God who does not change.

Lord, you say, I the LORD do not change; therefore you are not consumed. Thank you that my security rests not on my wavering faithfulness but on your unchanging character. Because your mercy and faithfulness do not run out with my failures, I am not consumed, and I can always return. However far I have drifted, you still say, return to me, and I will return to you. Help me rest in your unchangeableness, and to come back to you, the God who does not change. I return to you; thank you that you return to me.