All Things Skin, Wellness & Faith

BREADCRUMBS OF FAITH DEVOTIONAL 31: Are you giving God your best or what’s left?

• Natasha Dias

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What happens when our relationship with God becomes a matter of leftovers rather than first fruits? This thought-provoking exploration of Malachi chapter 1 challenges listeners to examine the quality of their spiritual offerings.

Have you ever paused to consider whether you're giving God your best, or simply what remains after everything else in life has taken its share? Through a careful examination of the prophet Malachi's confrontation with the Israelites, we uncover a timeless truth: our offerings reveal our hearts. The Israelites were bringing diseased, defective animals to the temple—sacrifices they wouldn't dare present to their earthly rulers—yet expected God to be pleased.

This episode isn't meant to condemn but to awaken. We explore what it means to fall back on the "grace card," using God's forgiveness as justification for spiritual complacency. Through references to Ephesians 4:15, 1 Samuel 15, and Amos 6, we build a biblical case for moving beyond comfortable faith into genuine devotion. The Christian walk isn't designed to be easy—it requires intentional effort, consistent growth, and genuine sacrifice.

Whether you're feeling stagnant in your faith journey or simply want to deepen your understanding of what it means to truly honor God, this episode offers practical reflection questions to evaluate your spiritual walk. Remember, even when we fall short, we serve a God whose "love endures forever." Take a moment today to consider: are you offering God your convenience, or your commitment? Subscribe now and join our community of believers seeking to give God nothing less than our very best.

Speaker 1:

Hey, there, you're tuned into another episode of All Things Skin Wellness and Faith, a podcast where you'll learn simple ways to implement skin care and wellness techniques from a holistic approach. On this podcast, we'll explore practical ways to address skin health and overall holistic spiritual well-being, while deepening your faith. I'm your host, natasha Diaz, a licensed holistic esthetician, day spa owner and a faithful believer and follower of Christ, and it's time to get ready to get encouraged and empowered as we dive into all things skin wellness and faith. Welcome back to All Things Skin Wellness and Faith. Welcome back to All Things Skin Wellness and Faith.

Speaker 1:

This is our weekly breadcrumb Breadcrumbs of Faith and today I come to you with one main question, which will also be the focus of our breadcrumb and just so also happens to be the title of today's episode. That question is are you giving God your best? Are you giving him what's left? Now, if you tune into our weekly breadcrumb, you know that our breadcrumb is devised to be a word of encouragement. But I have to warn you in advance today's episode will definitely be a word of encouragement, but it may also, at the same time, step on your toes just a little, just to keep in mind that none of this is in condemnation, but all of this is in love, as the word says in Ephesians 4.15 in the CSB. It tells us that we are to speak the truth in love. It tells us to let us grow into him. Who is the head? And that head that it's referring to is Christ Jesus. Now this scripture reminds us that we must continue our walk by consistently maturing in Christ-like ways. So I ask you just to take a second as we go through these scriptures today and ask yourself where you line up in your walk.

Speaker 1:

Today's scripture comes out of Malachi, in the first chapter. I'm not going to read to you today the entire first chapter, as it is just a breadcrumb. I'm going to jump around just a little bit and we're going to read Malachi, chapter 1, verses 2, 2, 3, and 4, 6, 9, and 10. I'll briefly go over a summary of the entire chapter, just a brief summary, just to tie it all together, so that you have some context, and then we'll just, you know, ponder on really quickly some reflection questions at the end, just so that you have a little bit of encouragement and feedback and something to focus on for the duration of your week, to just help you, you know, check the temperature of your walk with the Lord, your spiritual walk, and just to see where you lie.

Speaker 1:

I mean, the Lord typically, for the most part, is just happy to see that we are in him, happy to see that we are moving closer, and hopefully most of us this, this should apply that we are definitely going deeper in our walk. But sometimes we can get a little complacent, sometimes we can get a little bit stagnant and we tend to get, you know, outright, just a little bit lazy. And this is just an opportunity to take this scripture, which can kind of come off harsh in a sense, because I know when I first studied Malachi, the first chapter, when I studied Malachi in general, it was a little bit harsh. But as you become closer to the Lord, you know that everything that is written in his word is to grow us, to better us, to edify us. So let's just start off with reading the scriptures today, and the first scripture that I'm going to read today is going to come from Malachi, chapter one. It is verses one through three and then, like I said, we'll move on to six, nine and ten and then a little reflection. So verses 1 through 3, 1 through 3 reads I've always loved you, says the Lord, but you were taught Really.

Speaker 1:

How have you loved us? And the Lord replies this is how I showed my love for you. I loved your ancestor, jacob, but I rejected his brother, esau, and devastated his hill country. I turned Esau's inheritance into a desert for the jackals. Verse 6 reads the Lord of heaven's army says to the priest A son honors his father and servant respects his master. If I am your father and master, where are the honor and respect I deserve? You have shown contempt for my name. Verse 9 reads go ahead, beg God to be merciful to you, but when you bring that kind of offering, why should he show you any favor at all? Ask the lord of heavens, ask the lord of heaven's armies. Verse 10 reads how I wrote, how I wish one of you would shut the temple doors, that these worthless sacrifices could not be offered. I am not pleased with you, says the Lord of heaven's armies, and I will not accept your offerings. Verse 12 reads but you dishonor my name with your actions by bringing contemptible food. You are saying it's all right to defile the Lord's table.

Speaker 1:

So we have jumped around a little bit, but we do have a little bit of context to move forward on and the whole gist of Malachi. The scripture in Malachi is basically the contempt of the Israelites, how they have not taken the Lord seriously and how they have not really honored the Lord, how they have given, you know, sacrifices that are not really pleasing to the Lord. And in reading the whole entire chapter or the majority of the book of Malachi, I really found this to be interesting. This is not what I intended this week's breadcrumb to be on, so it is a little bit all over the place, but it is some key points that I believe that the Lord wants me to ponder on for myself and also to reflect to you.

Speaker 1:

In Malachi 1 verses 2 through 5, the prophet found his fellow Israelites bothered about the love of God. It somehow did not always seem clear that the love of God in fact, that God in fact did love them. In his reply, malachi urges them to look back, in verses 2 and 3, to the basic fact that the Lord's choice was Jacob rather than Esau. You'll find this reference in Genesis 25 and 23. This just kind of shows us, and this also reminds me as I ponder on that. It reminds me uh, what was it? Cain and Abel. I believe as well the same type of situation that a sacrifice that was given to the Lord was not as pleasing.

Speaker 1:

Now, as we look around to the, to the evidence of Esau's present experience, and look forward, in verses 4 and 5, to the outcome that would prove that the Lord in fact did love him, so we can look back and we can see what God has done for us in Jesus. This is the same thing that he's done for us with Jesus. He's made a way out for us and sometimes what we do is like we give him our leftovers. Sometimes what we do is like we give him our leftovers. Many of the times the Lord gives us our best and we just give him the least little bit. And verses 6 through 14, we can well. I actually didn't read verses 6 through 14, so this is just based off of my notes, but I'm not going to read that to you because I didn't read the whole entire scripture to you.

Speaker 1:

But the whole basis of Malachi, chapter one, is that we don't always come forth and give the Lord exactly what he deserves. If we go back to what he says in verse 10, he says that he is not pleased with you. He will not accept our offerings and, with you, he will not accept our offerings. And the offering he will not accept your offerings which the offerings that he's referring to is the offerings of the Israelites. And it also says in verse 12 that we dishonor him with our actions by bringing contemptible food, contemptible sacrifices, things that are not 100%. We give him just exactly what I said what's left, the leftovers, an invitation from the Lord for us to just re-examine our walk with him and to re-examine how exactly it is that we're growing with him and what exactly it is that we are presenting to him. A few other references to this will tell us in 1 Samuel 15 that obedience is better than sacrifice. And there are also references in Amos, chapter 6, which tells us the sin of complacency.

Speaker 1:

Being complacent with the Lord is definitely a type of sinful behavior. Now, thank God that he gave us Jesus, that our sins are forgiven, but we also don't want to fall on that grace card. So don't want to fall on that grace card, that grace card that allows us just to kind of linger and to be lazy in our walk with him. We also always want to remember and I'm going to reflect back to that scripture in Ephesians 3.15, that we are to be growing in Christ-like ways. So, as I wrap this up today, what I want you to focus on is a few things and just to ask yourself a few questions. Number one do we dishonor the Lord with our actions? Number two do our actions say it's too hard to serve the Lord so we just fall complacent and fall on grace so that we can just get, basically, a get into heaven card with the bare minimum? And number three, do we truly serve the Lord with fear and trembling, as it says in Psalms 211.

Speaker 1:

Like I said, this may poke a few nerves or step on your toes a little bit, but this is just to encourage you to always be growing deeper in the Lord, to always be re-evaluating your walk, to always make sure that, like I said, you're not coming from a place of complacency. So I pray that this has encouraged you in the sense of that you're encouraged to deepen your walk, that you're encouraged to go deeper, that you're encouraged to be more obedient, more sacrificial, knowing that in the end this is all going to pay off, knowing that God sees your actions, he knows your thoughts, he knows your heart. And if you struggle with this, we do have a loving and a forgiving God. Scripture also says that his love endured forevermore. So we know that even though we fall short, it's okay. We can. As believers, we can always get back up, we can repent for our ways, we can reevaluate and we can come before him and know that he forgives us and that he wants to see us succeed because he is a loving God.

Speaker 1:

But I also want you to know that this Christian walk is not an easy one, and it's one that requires you to do some work. So, okay, god, guys sorry, didn't mean to call you God okay, guys, I am going to wrap it up for the effort today. I hope this is giving you some hope for the future. I hope that this has given you some key thoughts that you know you can kind of ponder on again. Like I said, I invite you to just kind of go back and, you know, dig into Malachi at least definitely that first chapter yourself. Dig into the whole book of Malachi, dig into all of the prophets, major and minor, because there's just so much in scripture, even if you're familiar with this scripture and you've already, you know, dissected it pretty deeply. This is the awesome thing about the Bible and the word that there's always more. So that's it for today, guys. We're going to wrap it up for there. Wrap it up right there. Until next time, be blessed and be a blessing. Love you. Bye for now.