IF I then be a Father, wherein is Mine honor? And IF I be a master, where is My fear?" Malachi 1:6

Honor? Does the life of brats and criminals, honor their parents? YOU know the answer to that one! HOW can we live that life which "honors the Father" unless or until we KNOW God (the Father)?

...In the days of our Lord, as well as long previous thereto, many Jews had servants. Some had been bought from foreigners – even as Potiphar bought Joseph from the Ishmaelites. There were also many others "servants" who were not foreigners, but who were taken over by some rich lender in order to pay off the debt. Although the Matthew passage speaks of the servant's boss as "lord," yet we cannot refute the fact that the servant worked for his "master." HE HAD BEEN BOUGHT FOR A PRICE!! Naturally, such feared their masters – lest they get lashed!

Is there as much as one believing Christian today who has not read, or heard repeatedly, that we were/are "bought for a price"? Peter states so very clearly in his second epistle, chapter 2:1. Paul also states the same in I Corinthians 6:20, and repeats himself in chapter 7:23.

Now, have you stopped to THINK about that (assuming you claim to be "saved")? Or, did you analyze those "statements-of-fact" shortly after you were "saved"?

THAT was/is what the Creator Spirit talked about to Malachi in the last part of chapter 1:6! The "I AM" that spoke to Moses repeatedly was the same Spirit which spoke to and through His prophets, and also that selfsame Spirit which indwelled the lowly Nazarene ("...they weighed for MY price...." – Zech. 11:12). Yes indeed! That "I AM that I AM" knew long before He spoke to Moses, that He would incarnate in a Virgin, to become "The Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world"! But that great and awesome Creator Spirit arranged for a body of flesh, blood, and bones, in order that He might have the WHEREWITHAL to BUY YOU!