Christian tourism is alive and well! Those looking to stir up their faith and get a little closer to God will pay big bucks and travel across oceans to walk in these sacred spaces! Some travel to The Holy Land Experience in Orlando where they can be baptized by Jesus!
Others head for Williamstown Kentucky for a walk through Noah’s Ark!
Those looking for a little more authentic experience tour the land where Moses and Jesus actually walked, Israel itself!
And those looking for a less visual and more heart-and-soul experience head for a Hillsong Conference, or one of a few thousand mega-churches with their favourite pastor!
Spiritual tourism isn’t anything new!
During Amos’ day, people would head to Bethel, Gilgal or Beersheba, each considered spiritual heritage sites and revival centers of worship!
Bethel was the place where God met Jacob (Gen 28:11-19, Gen 35:1-7)!
Gilgal was the place where Israel entered the promised land and God cleansed the people and gave them a fresh start! (Joshua 5:1-12)
Beersheba was made famous by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Gen 21, 26, 46)!
However, now we hear the angry farmer declaring…
4 This is what the Lord says to Israel: “Seek me and live;
5 do not seek Bethel,
do not go to Gilgal,
do not journey to Beersheba.
For Gilgal will surely go into exile,
and Bethel will be reduced to nothing.”
6 Seek the Lord and live,
or he will sweep through the tribes of Joseph like a fire;
it will devour them,
and Bethel will have no one to quench it.
God goes on to say in essence, “I have no use for your spiritual tourism or your religious experiences! Holy places, religious ceremonies, revival-speakers and spiritual rituals mean nothing to Me if you don’t have justice! I want justice! And not just a trickle of justice from a garden hose you turn on for a few minutes…
…I want rivers of continuous, raging, unstoppable justice that carves its way through the hardest of places and hearts!”
Is the justice that flows in you and I more of the garden-hose variety…or is it more like the Colorado River?
God wants the river!
YOUR TURN: So, what phrase, word or concept from this chapter lit up your soul today?
HIT ‘COMMENT’ BELOW to share your reflections! You don’t have to complete personal fields to participate!
The Bible: A Chapter A Day 
God does want a river gushing out of us Springs of living water.I can cannot regulate the flow of the living water only He can do that and only after I develop a deep intimate relationship with Him Verses 21-24 talk about the religious things we as a church are doing. God will and is dealing with the injustices in this world Our job as a community of believers is to is to be God’s helpers in saving as many as He sends our way from the judgement and destruction that is coming in dealing with the injustices around us The prophets from Isaiah to Malachi which is a huge part of the Bible all had the same prophecy and they asked God what do we have to do to stop this from happening God’s response was that Israel and Judah would be destroyed and they were. But that was not the end of the story.
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Ptr. Todd is on point, “Spiritual Tourism isn’t anything new”.
As I was reading from the first to the last verse of Amos 5, as far as I am on this chapter a day, this is the most profound chapter I read because of its’ reality and truthfulness to this fallen world from generation to generation. It answers the question “what is justice”?.
Thank you Lord Almighty that your love endures forever throughout all generations.
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From verse 18 on God is telling it like it is…you’re all a bunch of surface believers who want to look good to each other but not really true to me and are not following all my laws you’re just following the laws that you think are enough by your neighbour because you’re all judging eachother, and only I am the true judge! I can see through all your false prayers and all your false practises and all your false religion because if it’s not true to me it’s worthless to me.
Apart from a couple things,this whole chapter can be summed up in two lines that appear in the chapter a few times, “Seek the Lord and live.
Seek good and not evil.”
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“You who turn justice into [the bitterness of] wormwood and cast righteousness (uprightness and right standing with God) down to the ground,”
Amos 5:7 AMPC
For me this verse is like a flashing neon light. I sure don’t want my display of Christianity or being a Christ follower to be so bitter to the Lord that he would spit it out of his mouth or cast it to the ground.
On the other hand, how do I leave people in my life that I may have met that are suffering injustice feel? Have I made a difference in their lives? Have I righted any wrongs? After hearing Jon’s sermon on Saturday night and reading this chapter, I am left feeling that I have a long way to go. That there is something I need to be doing with my life that will make a difference in someone’s life. That the pain of injustice felt by someone could be made easier to bear because they knew that Jesus sent along an imperfect, bumbling misfit who wanted to love them because Jesus first loved her.
II need to inquire of the Lord where He wants me to serve Him. Boy the word of the Lord sure is a double-edged sword. It really does cut through our blindness and changes our thinking.
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Changes our thinking for the better.:) hallelujah ! and glad to see your post worked!
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Verses 7-9 (The Message version)
“Do you realize where you are?
You’re in a cosmos
Starflung with constellations by God.
A world God wakes up each morning
And puts to bed each night…
He can turn this vast wonder into total waste.”
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