Malachi 1:2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord.

But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord.

“Yet I have loved Jacob 3 but Esau I have hated.

We pray to God: ‘Give me a blessing.’ ‘I cannot do this alone?’ ‘Please help me, Lord.’ We acknowledge God as our Father and as our Lord. The Lord, our Father in heaven then blesses us. He provides a loving mate. He provide godly guidance for our misguided children. He heals a dreaded disease. He provides job after job and puts food on our table. He places us in the congregation of Christians who care for our needs and for our soul. Again, and again, the Lord brings us blessing and not curse when we are not in the low place and do not even pray for blessing.

And what is our thanks? What is our offering to the Lord? Do we cleave to our beloved husband (or wife)? Do we stand as example of Jesus in our instruction of our children? Do we give thanks to the Lord for healing our body? Do we witness at work of the Lord’s unfailing love? Do we thank Him for the food on our table as if without Him we could not be fed? Do we thank Him that someone does not have to feed us for our inability of health to hold even a spoon? Do we joyfully worship with our loving brothers and sisters in Christ on the Lord’s day? Do we gently guide our children to the house of the Lord?

We fall back into our sins. We slide back toward the pit. We revel in the ways of the world and witness against Christ as our Lord. We witness against God our Father. We offer the sacrifice of our tithes and offerings to the gods of chance, the gods of addiction and the gods of our evil desires. We bow down and worship the gods of sin!

But you say, “How have you loved us?”

Do you understand as you trespass the blessing of the Cross that you sell forever His blessing and grace and love?

Don’t you know that we are ALL lawbreakers? Don’t you remember what you were before you were adopted into the family of faith, the Household of God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord?

God is NOT your Father and Christ Jesus is NOT your Lord (for no one will lord it over you) IF you witness against the love and sacrifice and blood of the Cross.

You reject the Lord. Why, at the Day of your judgment, should the Lord not reject YOU?

Some of us reject a God that could hate Esau… a God who would hate us. (I spoke to this earlier.) We think of Esau as just a man who lived long ago. We think of Israel as only a land and not a people chosen once by God who rejected God continually and rejected Christ Jesus forever.

Paul, the Apostle to the gentiles, was once a man of Jacob, chosen by God over Esau.  He hated Christ Jesus, the Messiah of Promise and Blessing of the gentiles. God so loved the world; yet Saul of Tarsus hated the church.

What if Saul of Tarsus had not finally bowed down to Christ Jesus as Lord? Would he not also be judged with Esau?

Abram was changed to Abraham. Jacob was changed to Israel. Saul of Tarsus was changed to Paul the Apostle.

Has God changed you for all eternity by the Cross of Christ Jesus?

Or do you ask for God’s blessing, then quickly turn from the Lord?

The books of the Bible, which we so carelessly neglect along with the armor of our salvation, point us so diligently toward salvation (being saved from our great curse of sin and death). Over and over the books of the Bible instruct us in that which we ought to have instructed our children and heeded in our own lives.

GOD IS a Person. God our Father may hate, but most certainly God our Father does love those who truly love Him.

Genesis 4: And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. 6 The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”

10 And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. 11 And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.

Does the Blood of the Cross not cry out against you when you offer to your sin that which is the Lord’s?

13 Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. 14 Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden…

Deuteronomy 11: 26 “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: 27 the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, 28 and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known.

 Joshua 8:30-35 

Joshua Renews the Covenant

30 At that time Joshua built an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal, 31 just as Moses the servant of the Lord…

34 And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law. 35 There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the sojourners who lived among them.