Amos 9

There is nothing like hope!

After 8.5 chapters of poetry and prophecy about God’s coming judgment, Amos abruptly shifts gears, swings wide open the shutters of the future and lets the sunshine of hope in once again!

Have you experienced the moment hope springs from a barren and hopeless situation?  It’s remarkable!  There is nothing in this world like hope!  It’s the craziest thing!  One minute, life is full of darkness, dread, gloom and all the emotions to reside at the bottom of the proverbial barrel!  Then, someone punches a hole in the barrel and the slightest beam of light splits the darkness!  You’re still at the bottom of the barrel!  Your circumstance hasn’t changed one bit!  There is no guarantee that the bottom-dwelling is going to end any time soon! All that has been added to your situation is the introduction of the slightest, smallest little ray of hope…and it changes everything!

Yesterday, on day one of the Global Leadership Summit Riverwood is hosting, along with 1600 other sites including 81 prisons, I felt like I personally experienced the sprouting of new hope!

God used Craig Groeschel to teach me about “BTC” (Bend the Curve)!   I had been thinking in conventional ways but Craig reminded us the ‘sometimes God withholds what we think we need most in order to provide an even greater return!…Often our constraints lead us to an even greater breakthrough!’  BOOM! Hope just split the dry ground and sprouted!

God used Liz Bohannon to teach me to ‘stop dreaming big and start dreaming small and the sacred value of just 1!’   BOOM!  Hope just punched a hole in my barrel!  I don’t need to be anybody’s hero!  I don’t need to create a great organization!  I just need to let the dream get lived out in each relationship and connection!

Towards the end of the day, God used Danielle Strickland to teach me that “disruption is not a threat, its an invitation!”  BOOM!  The lid was blown off the barrel and the light flooded in!

But hear me!  Nothing in my circumstances and challenges changed yesterday…other than ‘hope’ was introduced!  And that changed everything!

Amos 9:11-15 was a fresh sprouting of hope for Israel!

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!

Amos 8

I can sense my family is becoming increasingly frustrated!  In so many ways, I am becoming my father:  I’m increasingly becoming hard of hearing! 

Carolyn will sometimes say, “I think I just heard a mosquito!”, to which I will reply, “I have no idea!  I have a 1000 mosquito’s buzzing around my head 24/7!”  That’s because I have some increasingly noisy tinnitus:  a constant ringing and buzzing in my ear.

I’m not quite sure of the cause.  It might be because of all the tools I used without ear protection when I was young. Or it might be because of a shotgun blast that went off near my right ear while hunting with a somewhat careless friend back when I was a youth pastor.  Or, maybe it’s just old age!  Whatever the reason, Amos 8 made me think of my difficulties with hearing.

As we reflect on this passage, the first sound I heard was the power of a rhyming word.  

Amos is communicating with something of a poem and the power of this vision is first found in his rhyme.

“So when Amos replies to the Lord that he sees a basket of ripe qayis, God replied “Qes!”An end is to come upon Israel.”(Boice)

Amos then continues on his familiar theme of justice with some poignant imagery and a scathing description of how the people are living unjust! 

Finally, Amos moves from a basket of ripe fruit to a famine in the land.  This is interesting!  It’s not a famine of fruit or bread or meat!  It’s a famine of God’s Word!  And it’s not that God’s Word isn’t present, it’s that the people can’t hear it!  This is clearing a problem with the ‘hearer’!

The people have become hard of hearing!

The people have a distracting din and buzz in their heads that is keeping them from hearing and understanding the Word of God!

This morning, I know for a fact that I have a hearing problem!  I’m getting older and it’s expected!  I just hope and pray I don’t have a hearing problem when it comes to the Word of God!   I’m OK frustrating my family a bit…I just don’t want to be frustrating my Heavenly Father!

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!

Amos 7

Carpenters and builders all develop their own tricks or hacks to make their work easier!

If you have a small nail you need to put in but don’t want to smash your finger, try this…

If you don’t have a tool belt but need a place to hang your hammer, a 6” piece of PVC pipe will work…

If you have a lot of measurements to remember, try putting tape on your tape measure and writing the numbers on that…

If you can’t get a nail out, simply create more leverage by putting another tool under your hammer…

And, of course, if you need to determine whether or not a wall is straight, simply grab some string and a weight and create yourself a plumb line…

This, of course if God’s builder’s-hack He uses to determine how straight Israel is building their lives!

⁸ And the Lord asked me, “What do you see, Amos?”

“A plumb line,” I replied.

Then the Lord said, “Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.

Through the prophet Isaiah, God said almost the same thing but even more precisely:

Isaiah 28:17 (NLT)

¹⁷ I will test you with the measuring line of justiceand the plumb line of righteousness.

The plumb line isn’t an arbitrary or inconsistent measuring tool!  The plumb line is true every time and the same for everyone!  It is what it is!  It will always hang straight!  

God says He will hold up His plumb line against our lives and examine how straight and true we are building our lives!

Are we leaning towards consumerism and wealth?

Has one end of our lives sunk into the ground when it comes to righteousness?

Is there a list to our lives that exploits or ignores those who are suffering?

Are we overextended and built on a sub-standard foundation?

Is there a tilt towards comfort, ease and self-indulgence?

The plumb line will reveal all!

Thankfully, as we build our lives, we have God’s Word, which is  a plumb line we can hold up everyday as we lay one day, one action, one thought and one pursuit on another!

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!

Amos 6

Here’s a great question to start our day:  “What is success?”

It would seem that 2750 years ago, success was partially measured by what kind of bed you owned!  These days you can get a Sealy Posturepedic queen set for under $1000!  That’s a pretty decent bed.  But in Amos’ time, some people were snoozing in luxury!

⁴ You lie on beds adorned with ivory and lounge on your couches.

I have no idea what a bed adorned with ivory would cost today!  I’m guessing that today Amos might have said…

⁴ You lie on your Starry Night Sleep Technology beds adorned with incline mechanisms, wifi, temperature control and pop-up surround sound for $50,000!

The hi-tech Starry Night bed.

Or, Amos might say… ⁴ You lie on your Jado Steel’s Golden Bed adorned with 24 ct gold and embellished with Swarovski crystals, a BOSE sound system and built in gold plated TV for $160,000!

Or, if he was wanting to show extreme success, he might say…⁴ You lie on your Magnetic Floating beds adorned 1500 lb magnets for $1.6 million!

And who would argue that sleeping in a $50K or $160K or $1.6M bed is a declaration of success! But that’s exactly what Amos does! He says, “That’s not success!  In God’s eyes, if the person crawling into that bed each night doesn’t have a heart and life full of justice and righteousness, they are the opposite of success!  They are an extreme failure!”

This is just another example of God’s upside-down-kingdom!  In the previous chapter God declared that He hated their religious festivals, their revival services and their worship songs!  God flips our value system completely on it’s head!  Most would think that that is what God wants most from us, but He says, “I want justice and righteousness!”  Now, in this chapter, God is doing it again!  Saying up is down and down is up!  Those who think they are rich are actually poor and the poor, if their hearts are tuned to God and full of justice and righteousness, are rich!

So, it’s a great question to have bouncing around in our hearts and minds all day today:  “What is success?  What is my definition of success…and what is God’s definition of success?  And which is my life more tuned into?”

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!

Amos 5

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…

close up of a person’s hand holding a black garden hose, spraying the grass in the lawn with water

…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!

Amos 4

Context is everything!

For instance, very shortly after the birth of his third child, Prince William was caught flipping off the press with a rather crude gesture!

Absolutely repugnant! Who does he think he is!  You can even see the smug confidence on his face, as if to say, “I’m the Prince and my family’s affairs are none of your &$%@^# business!”

Or, could it be that when asked how they are doing the Prince answered, “We are very happy, very delighted – thrice the worry now!”

Such a great reminder, once again, that context is everything!

So, as we move into Amos 4, a bit more context would be helpful!

Some will read the book of Amos as full of crude and threatening gestures!  The amateur poetic ramblings of an unknown lunatic farmer! Or, could there be something else going on here?

When it comes to context, Pastor Jon’s launch of our new series this weekend, “Let Justice Roll”is a revealing snapshot from another angle! It is a powerful expose that rings as clear as a bell!  If you are serious about understanding this book, I highly recommend your tune in live at 9:40 or 11:40 am this morning or catch up with the teaching this week after it’s posted!

The context of this book: A seemingly mad farmer stands outside the temple as the worship service is about to start.  Right on cue, he begins reciting his poem.  At first people are offended, but as they listen they realize the sheep-raiser with the loud voice is calling down judgment on all of Israel’s neighbours!  Maybe this guy isn’t so bad!  However, after circling all the nations around them, his judgment lands on Israel and he doesn’t hold back!

The farmer points out Israel’s success, wealth and prestige!  The farmer pulls back the sheets on their gender-targeted abuse and their exploitation of the vulnerable!  The farmer points his finger in the chest of those who live comfortably at the expense of other’s suffering.   

It turns out Amos isn’t some deranged farmer!  He is a man speaking out God’s message to a nation that has ignored God even as it continues it’s pious worship services!

The whole point of this book is that God is calling for justice!  

“Justice and it’s pursuit are at the very heart of God!”Jon says!

“The just person is one who sees their life’s resources as belonging to the whole community!….Justice demands that we leverage our resources to advocate and help the vulnerable!”

It would be so easy to misunderstand what this book is all about!  However, with just 30 minutes of context-teaching, the Book of Amos shines like a brilliant light in a world smothered by darkness and injustice! 

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!

Amos 3

Now Amos, the sheep-raiser turned prophet, announces to the people what God has told him…and it has everything to do with ‘the logic of judgment’!

‘Inputs’ and ‘outputs’!

Amos makes six pithy little logic statements, setting the reader up for the seventh in verses 3-6! Then he drops the bombshell:  “⁶ …When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it?”

Now, we need to be cautious here!  Taken out of context this verse makes it sound like God is the creator and inflictor of all evil, calamity and disaster!  That certainly isn’t the prophets point to this logic exercise. Amos is simply saying, “Because of your sin and refusal to live God’s-way! Because of your injustice and the way you treat the poor and vulnerable!  Because of your pride and idol worship…God’s judgement is coming.  And when it does, don’t go thinking it’s just bad luck or Mother Nature!  Don’t just think it happened by chance!  In this instance understand the flow of logic!  A bird might fly down to a snare and think nothing of taking the bait, but once it is caught it realizes there is a hunter who orchestrated this!  God is orchestrating judgment!”

Peter, in the new testament, gives another example of the flow of logic.  This one in a positive direction:

2 Peter 1:5-8 (NIV)

⁵ … make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; ⁶ and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; ⁷ and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. ⁸ For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God’s Word states how life works pretty logically!  What you put in is what you can expect to experience as output!  We can’t ‘input’ pride, selfishness, disobedience, neglect, hard-heartedness, greed, materialism, lust and rejection of God and expect God’s blessing, protection, guidance and grace!  On the other hand, if we are committed to…⁸ …whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. ⁹ …put (these things) into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”  Philippians 4:8-9 (NIV)

It’s simple logic!

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!

Amos 2

God’s judgment and wrath, when unleashed, are always a bit difficult for us to wrap our minds around! We like to think of God as loving, compassionate, slow to anger, forgiving and full of grace.  Which He is!  But He is also pure, holy and sin doesn’t stand a chance in His presence!

Whenever I read about God’s judgment and wrath, it helps me to think of the sun!

If you or I were to try to approach the sun, we might hear the sun saying… “I will send fire on you and consume anything you try to hide in!” (Amos 2:2)  “I will utterly kill you and the officials around you!”(Amos 2:3)   “I will send fire on you and when I do, your skin will begin to blister.  Your hair will catch fire.  Your eyeballs will begin to melt.  Your clothes will be burnt off your body.  You will scream in terror and wish you were dead!  Your space craft’s, made of Hf-Ta-C material that will withstand temperatures up to 7460F will melt like a popcicle as you near my 17,000,000 F temperatures!”  “I will crush you like a cart loaded with wheat crushes!” (Amos 2:13)  “¹⁴ The swift will not escape, the strong will not muster their strength, and the warrior will not save his life.”  (Amos 2:14)

Would the sun make such horrible, nasty and destructive threats because the sun is mean, vengeful or cruel?  No! Because the sun is so pure, holy and unfathomably hot!  Those are simply the results of attempting to live in the presence of the sun!

Whenever God speaks of His justice and wrath, it is only a description of the chances humanity stands as they are in the presence of the 17,000,000 F holiness of God!

Trying to wrap my mind around 17,000,000 F is nearly impossible!  I can imagine and understand 500 F, because that is the temperature wood ignites!  I can even comprehend 2750 F, because that is the temperature at which steel melts! You’d have to have a flame burning at 5500 F in order to melt tantalum!  Ok!  I get that! But what is 17 million degrees F?  That is a mind-blowing, incomprehensible amount of heat!

We may not understand or comprehend God’s holiness, but thankfully we are shielded from it…most of the time! Amos is simply warning and describing the effects of 17 million degrees of holiness on the sins of people!

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!

Amos 1

Welcome to book 15 and Day 183 of our 1000 day, Chapter-a-Day reading challenge! 

Now, if our previous book, 1 Samuel, was a little like reading an intriguing novel with dynamic characters, a thrilling plot and flawed pursuits of the human soul, the Book of Amos is going to be a little like reading 3000 year old dark-poetry written to someone else, in a different language and on a different continent! In other words, it’s going to be a bit more of a tough slug and will require a bit more work on our part!

So, to prepare, I highly recommend that you watch this 7 minute video that provides an overview of our next book!

Now, a bit about Amos:

• There is no other mention of him in the Bible
• His name means ‘burden’ or ‘burden bearer’
• He is not a formal or professional prophet.  He is a sheep farmer.
• He actually calls himself a ‘sheep raiser’, probably so that no one would get him confused with a ‘spiritual shepherd’.  He really is a farmer.
• Tekoa is a city about ten miles from Jerusalem

So, what is Amos’ message? It’s quite simple:  judgement is coming!

Most of us have an allergic reaction to the word ‘judgement’!  The phrase ‘no judgement’ has become a marketable catch-phrase in our culture!  On of the highest values of our society is acceptance of all and unlimited tolerance! One of the greatest infractions is to judge another!  This idea has become so widely accepted that, one fitness gym chain has adopted it and leveraged the power of this phrase for more memberships! 

However, last year an employee from a Planet Fitness in New Hampshire called the police in a panic!  “There is a man working out in our gym…who is fully naked!”

As he was being lead out in handcuffs he was heard saying to police, “I thought this was a judgment-free zone!”

Interesting!

Was it really a judgment-free zone?  Or was this false advertising?  It would seem the gym employee, the other fitness clients and the cops all flipped into full-on-judgment mode!  Everyone involved quickly made an assessment, used discernment, issued a ruling and verdict! They were exercising highly-efficient judgmentalism in that situation! 

My point is this:  the idea of ‘no judgment’ or a ‘judgment-free zone’ feels good on the surface, but is neither realistic or how life works! I fully agree that we should be slow to judge, judge ourselves first and, whenever possible, reserve our judgement for others!  However, this book isn’t about humans-judging-humans!  It’s about the Almighty, Perfect, Creator, Sustainer God of the Universe issuing His ruling and verdict on human behaviour!  He has every right to do this…even if we humans don’t enjoy or appreciate it!

Amos the sheep-raiser, is saying “People!  God is about to make an assessment, use His discernment, issue His ruling and verdict!…and it’s His right to do so!  So, brace yourselves!  God is about to speak…and here is what He says…”

As much as we might not like the language and feel of judgment, we would be fools to suggest all judgment is wrong and we live in a judgment free zone!

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!