“But you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?’ Malachi 3:13
This is a song that I included on the “Human Liturgy” album. The night that I wrote it, I played it for Kim and after she had listened to it she said, “You’re not a very good person, are you?”
I had been reading in the book of Malachi. I like the Old Testament, and I love the minor prophets. Like them, we also live in a time when “every man does what is right in his own eyes.” I can feel their pain as they speak God’s message to the people, and the people respond with apathy. What I found particularly interesting while reading Malachi was that I had done every terrible thing that God was angry with His people for doing. They are terrible things, and I had done them.
So, I wrote this song as a confession. I invite you to sing along.
The video is a bunch of pretty images that show how broken and in pain the world is. All of these awful things are going on all around us, and we are tempted at every turn to remain hard hearted. They are starving and in pain and we are too often satisfied with giving them platitudes and prayer. The world needs Jesus, true, but there is more to our Christian duty than pointing our holy fingers at them as they suffer and telling them to REPENT!
We actually need to repent first. We … you and me … the church … we need to take a serious look at Malachi and point it at ourselves first. It is written to God’s people. The salvation that Jesus offers to the world He offers through a river that flows from the church as the church worships Him in Spirit and in Truth. It is not the mission of individuals alone, it is the mission of a people.
I think if you look hard enough you will see yourself in the video.