Malachi 3:6 - "I, the LORD, Do Not Change"

God’s law is no exception to Malachi 3:6 – God does not change! Contrary to popular thought, Jesus did not come preaching a “new” religion of love. Instead, He came declaring that the Israelites had never truly embraced the love that God had commanded through the law and the prophets. This is clearly seen in the following passage from Zechariah:

Zechariah 7:9-11

 This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.' But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and stopped up their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the LORD Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the LORD Almighty was very angry.

This passage comes right after God chides the Israelites because they observed only the purely physical aspects of God’s law without the love, sincerity, and humility that God commands and requires along with them. It really hit me when I read the line “In your hearts do not think evil of each other” that this is exactly what Christ preached in the sermon on the mount: it’s all about the heart! Their hearts were hard and uncircumsized, just as God had warned before in Leviticus 26:41, when He promised that when the people had turned away that He would remember their covenant and receive them again "when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for their sin."

God didn’t wait until Zechariah or any of the prophets to make plain the premise of love in His law – indeed the two “greatest commandments” that Christ spoke of were quoted from Leviticus and Deuteronomy – again, the LORD does not change. And not only did God emphasize all of these things from the beginning: you can find countless examples of love, mercy, humility, and repentance in the actions of God's servants throughout the Old Testament - men such as Moses, Samuel, and David, who understood that the unselfish love of God is the foundation of His law. 

To conclude, remember that just as God’s love does not change, neither does His imperative for us to keep His commandments:

1 John 5:3-4

This is love for God: to obey His commands. And His commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.

Faith and obedience have never been separate in the eyes of our Creator; therefore, let us demonstrate our faith by our works, so that we may be born of God and overcome the evil of this world, for this has been God's plan since before the foundation of the world!