Do you ever wonder what matters to God?

Sometimes we assume God is like us. That is, whatever matters (or doesn’t matter) to us matters to Him.

When you look at Scripture, you find this is not the correct assumption. God is not like us at all. He is Spirit; we are human. He is all wise, all knowing, all present. His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9). His thoughts are greater than ours and His ways are more significant than our ways.

What we really learn is that everything matters to God.

With God there are no little sins and no unimportant people or events. God cares about people and He cares how we live (or don’t live) our lives.

Malachi’s prophecy makes that so clear. Yesterday I preached from Malachi 2:17-3:6. God showed many areas He cares about.

First, He cares how we worship. God is not pleased with disinterested worship. He wants our worship and devotion. We were made for this.

Second, God wants clean hands and pure hearts (Psalm 24:3-4). “Clean hands” refers to treating other people with respect and dignity. It means treating people righteously. A “pure heart” means the person we are on the inside. Our inward being is the source of our thoughts and attitudes. This really matters before God. All you have to do is look at the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) to know this matters to Him.

Third, God cares about offerings, especially offerings that are righteous. God spoke through Malachi to tell of a time when the Lord would suddenly come to the temple to refine it and to cleanse it. Then, the priests and the people would offer righteous offerings.

God wants our offerings and He wants them from people of pure hearts. This is part of the reason God loves a cheerful giver.

Finally, right living matters to God. Things like caring for the poor and shunning idols (such as visiting a fortune teller) matter to God, so do truth telling and marital faithfulness (Malachi 3:5).

All this and more matters to God. If we truly love Him, it will matter to us as well.

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