The Edomites helped the Babylonians ransack Jerusalem and helped capture and enslave Jews who were trying to escape. The Edomites no longer exist. They did not learn their lesson. God had sent his first missionary prophet to a people who were the enemies of the Jews. Obadiah’s message would go on to predict the utter destruction of Edom. He said “The house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau stubble; they shall burn them and consume them, and there shall be no survivor for the house of Esau, for the LORD has spoken” (18).
There is a message for you and me coming from the heart of Obadiah today. That message is about the people we might tend to marginalize because they are different from us. They are the beggars, and people suffering from natural disasters, or people caught in the trap of drugs, or some alternative lifestyle that we see as wrong.
It may seem like God has given up on those people. But Obadiah tells us that God is watching us to see if we will chose to love them. We may say, “They made their bed, let them lie in it.” That is exactly the attitude Edom had. God is calling us to love the unlovable. If we are going to be children of our heavenly Father, we will have to act like he does.
LORD, give us your attitude … the mind of Christ.
Devotions 