Malachi 1:6-2:9

God expects from us our first fruits.  What an exhausting thought, today.  After a long few weeks at my day job, to hear that a lot of that isn't really what God is looking for is deflating, but its true.  I give God blemished goods because I myself am tired or unmotivated to do the good that God put me on this earth to do. 

This came up for me this past week before the service at Bible study too.  We were talking about 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8 and what God was calling us to do in the chapter.  We spoke about life as a "human being" as opposed to a "human doing."  What a struggle it is!  When you do too much, you cannot be still enough to hear God's words.  But if you are to idle, then you are not giving God your best! 

But perhaps the crux of the matter for me is in that passage from 1 Thessalonians where Paul writes "we speak as those approved by God." God's grace (sans Kelly's "issue #1") allows us to be free of this worry and empowers us to do as much as we can without worrying that God does not love us because we don't do enough and give enough.  What we do though should be within God's commandments to love one another.  So whether it is within church walls or the walls of a big bank, we need to treat everyone as a child of God.