Amos: Get back to plumb!
Devotion based on Week 3 of “The Prophets” – Amos (WATCH HERE)
Sometimes you just have to knock it down and start over.
When a wall is out of plumb, sometimes it can’t be saved, no matter how hard you try.
One wall that’s crooked leads to another distorted wall and finally the whole building is on shaky ground.
But sometimes it’s hard to get there.
Spiritually the people of Israel were out of plumb. Amos points out things of their worship life, their lifestyle, their values and their security that did not align to the Lord.
If one was off, maybe the others could pull them back.
But they were all off.
Why?
Because the people had abandoned listening to the Word of the Lord.
They were doing life their own way with their own priorities, their self-made advice, and their own form of truth.
Like a parent who walks away from a stubborn child who insists on doing things their own way and allows them to experience the consequences of their selfish actions, so the Lord allowed Israel to pursue their own whims as they dismissed him.
The indication they hit bottom is when they realized their predicament and began to seek the Word of the Lord, it was not to be found. Amos 8:11 says, “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land— not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. 12 Men will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.
They might have all that the world has to offer, but they were void of what the word had to say.
The punishment the Lord promised was coming. The temporal consequences for their sins would be felt.
But the Lord did not leave them without hope.
Amos 9:13 “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman and the planter by the one treading grapes. New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills. 14 I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. 15 I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them,” says the Lord your God.
The goal of the Lord’s message and impending captivity was to awake the hearts of his people back to him. His promise of hope gave the people the picture of what hearts again aligned to the Lord would look like and experience.
The God of all grace, even though the wall had to be destroyed, would rebuild straight to plumb.
Does the Lord do this in our lives today?
Maybe not as drastic as Israel, but perhaps. Perhaps he allows the good things of life to be taken away because we have allowed them to become the ultimate thing. Perhaps he allows a time challenge and hardship where it seems like he is absent, but he is refining and reorienting your heart back to his. God knows best how to help us realize what is out of plumb and then in his grace restore our broken hearts to align to his cross of grace and forgiveness. And when this happens, the life we experience and the eternity we get to look forward to far surpass the pain of allowing the Lord to tear down the misaligned wall and rebuild it straight to his heart.
Apply: How is the Lord working in your life to point out the areas that are out of line and realign them to his heart?
Prayer: Lord thank you for your law that points out where my life is out of alignment. Thank you for your grace that is willing to forgive and rebuild the wall of my heart and life back in alignment with you. Keep me always aligned to you! AMEN.
Amos: Align Your Values to the LORD
Devotion based on Week 3 of “The Prophets” – Amos (WATCH HERE)
What are your values?
What is the underlying code that drives what you do, how you set your priorities and how you interact with others?
You might call these inner compass realities as your values.
When you operate in the context of your values, you generally are at peace.
When you are forced or willingly step outside those values, it creates discomfort and possibly anxiety.
For example, if one of your values is “prioritize family” and your employer asks you to work a lot of overtime and it prevents you from being with family, you will feel stressed and uneasy.
The problem is when you are comfortable with your values, but your values are wrong.
This is what was happening in Israel when God sent the prophet Amos. When the Lord’s plumb line measured the values of the hearts of Israel, they did not align.
Israel valued personal gain over caring for people. Israel’s leaders valued what they could get from people over what they could do for people. When boiled down to its essence, people carried values that benefited themselves above being a blessing to others. Here’s what the Lord said:
Amos 2:6 This is what the Lord says:
“For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not turn back my wrath.
They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals.
7 They trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed.
Amos 5:7 You who turn justice into bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground
11 You trample on the poor and force him to give you grain.
Therefore, though you have built stone mansions, you will not live in them;
though you have planted lush vineyards, you will not drink their wine.
12 For I know how many are your offenses and how great your sins.
You oppress the righteous and take bribes and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts.
The LORD calls them from their materialistic values to value justice and mercy. The poor and needy weren’t there to be taken advantage of, but rather to be given the same consideration and measure of justice that the more well off had.
What about our values?
Maybe your challenge isn’t the same as Israel in that you value personal gain over the justice of others, but are their values that don’t measure to the plumbline of the Lord.
Values can often be seen by what we prioritize our time and finances on.
Take time this week to evaluate the way you spend your time and resources. What do they say about your values? Do the words of Amos call you to repentance?
Remember the plumbline of the Lord is for our blessing. It shows where we are off to call us back to the LORD. The Lord values mercy and grace. He loves to forgive and transform our lives and hearts.
He loves to direct our hearts to value time in the Word and worship. He loves us to prioritize values that promote righteousness, godliness, justice, peace and love of others.
These are values that are worth pursuing!
Apply: Take time to evaluate and delineate what your values are. Measure them to the LORD. What is aligned? What needs to be adjusted?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for your love which calls out my misaligned values and returns them back to you. Transform my heart and my actions to always value and live what honors you! AMEN.
Amos: Aligning our hearts to worship!
Devotion based on Week 3 of “The Prophets” – Amos (WATCH HERE)
Align your heart to worship the Lord!
The plumbline is a blessing.
Imagine if your house was built without any instrument to ensure the walls were straight. While the “Leaning Tower of Pisa” is a rare exception, buildings with crooked walls are buildings whose walls will crumble.
The same is true of our lives.
The plumbline the Lord showed Amos was to measure the hearts and lives of Israel, as well as give us an opportunity to reflect and not what might be out of line in our lives.
At the forefront of Amos’ message from the Lord was to call hearts back to alignment with the Lord. The “brick” of their hearts were not aligned to worship the Lord, but rather to worship the idols placed in various cities, other than Jerusalem. People were told and thought that by going to these places, it was the same as worshipping the Lord.
It wasn’t.
The idols in the shape of calves were not the LORD who brought the people out of Egypt. The sacrifices were empty efforts that had no heart of true worship aligned to the LORD. Having people note your religiosity and brag about it was a far cry from a heart that aligned to the LORD and worshiped in Spirit and truth, without any concern for what other people saw or thought. Here’s what Amos spoke to the people on behalf of the LORD:
Amos 4:4 “Go to Bethel and sin; go to Gilgal and sin yet more. Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three years. 5 Burn leavened bread as a thank offering and brag about your freewill offerings— boast about them, you Israelites, for this is what you love to do,” declares the Sovereign LORD.
Amos 5:21 “I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. 22 Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. 23 Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.
The prophet Isaiah summed it up this way (Isaiah 29:13):
The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.
So how does your heart of worship align to the plumb line of the LORD? Out of plumb looks like worship that is done simply out of habit, not heart. Out of plumb worship looks like personal recognition rather than humble repentance. Out of plumb worship seeks to be known and recognized by people around rather than to be heard and recognized at the throne of grace. Out of plumb worship focuses on the efforts of man rather than the grace of God.
Worship that the LORD loves is worship that comes from hearts changed by the truth of grace, humbled in repentance and moved by the Spirit. Worship that is plumb is expressed with all our heart, soul and mind loving the LORD. Worship that is solid is not just a Sunday weekend, but an every day attitude that lives in view of God’s mercy and for the purpose of proclaiming God’s mercy.
This is the worship that the LORD finds aligned to his plumb line!
Apply: Evaluate your life of worship. Where does it align? Where is it off? Ask the Spirit of God to work in your heart and life to align all to the Lord in worship that comes from a heart that is changed by the LORD.
Prayer: LORD, forgive me for empty, ritualistic, self-centered worship of you. Change my heart to live in view of your mercy and always live a life of worship that always reflects that mercy. AMEN.
Amos: The Value of a Plumb Line
Devotion based on Week 3 of “The Prophets” – Amos (WATCH HERE)
Jesus used parables to teach spiritual truths. The LORD gave his prophet visions that provided concrete pictures of what he was trying to communicate to his people.
For Amos, one of those pictures was the LORD standing next to a wall holding a plumb line.
A plumb line is a thin, yet strong, string with a weight (plumb bob) at the end. The line is held or secured above where a wall was to be built with the weight just slightly off the ground. The force of gravity would pull straight down on the plumb bob and make the string straight up and down. Masons would then align their bricks to this line to ensure the wall was straight.
Straight walls provide the most strength to a building. No one would want a mason to “eyeball” his project and “hope” that the wall was straight. Sure it might look “pretty” straight and maybe even stand. However, if the owner of the house would come and hang a plumb line against the wall and find it out of plumb, they would find it unsatisfactory and want the wall redone.
The LORD uses this ancient practice of brick laying to speak of the spiritual condition of his people. Here’s what Amos saw (Amos 7:7-9)
7 This is what he showed me: The Lord was standing by a wall that had been built true to plumb, with a plumb line in his hand. 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.
9 “The high places of Isaac will be destroyed and the sanctuaries of Israel will be ruined; with my sword I will rise against the house of Jeroboam.”
The plumb line was the LORD’s. He was the one who would set the plumb line and determine the spiritual condition of Israel. What he would find is hearts and lives grossly out of line with his word of truth and holy law.
The result?
The wall would be knocked down. “I will spare them no longer.”
The way they were building their lives around hearts that had moved away from the LORD left anything but a solid spiritual wall. It was a wall that was shaky, doomed to fall, and needed to be rebuilt true to plumb.
What would the Lord find in your heart and life if he held a plumb line to our spiritual condition? We’d like to think it aligns well, but to be sure, we have bricks of life that are out of line. Devotions that follow will address those specifically.
But here’s the truth about the LORD’s heart.
He wants our hearts and lives aligned to him because he loves us enough to let us think we are building a solid wall of faith, only to have it crumble when he returns. The LORD loves us enough to put his plumb line on our hearts and bring to use the realization that aspects of our life need repentance, forgiveness and rebuilding along the line of the LORD. This is a blessing, not a curse.
Sure the people of Israel would go into captivity. That was the consequence. However, the goal of the judgment was to bring the people back in line with the heart of God.
If it takes knocking the wall down, so be it.
The LORD can then rebuild the wall true to plumb.
Apply: What parts of your life would the LORD find out of line/plumb with his Word and ways? As these areas are pointed out, respond with a heart of humility to allow the LORD to build your life in line with his will and ways.
Prayer: LORD, thank you for your love that is willing to put a plumbline on my heart and realign all my thoughts, words, and actions to your perfect word and ways. AMEN.
Amos: Ordinary Guy with God’s Extraordinary message
Devotion based on Week 3 of “The Prophets” – Amos (WATCH HERE)
Amos didn’t volunteer for the job or send in his resume. He was a political activist or a religious zealot. He didn’t have prophetic training and he didn’t come from a family of prophets.
He had no personal interest or special training to be a prophet of the LORD, but the LORD wanted him for the job.
The LORD wanted him to be the person to speak judgment and call to repentance to the people of Israel. He answered that call and faithfully spoke the message the LORD gave him, but he wasn’t popular for it.
People haven’t changed. Hearing the Word of the Lord is enjoyed when it tells us we are loved. But we would rather not hear words that point out where we are straying from the Lord’s commands and the punishment that comes as a result. We don’t want to hear it.
Amaziah, was the same.
Amaziah was the priest at Bethel, one of the places in the northern kingdom of Israel that was set up for worship with an image of a calf and passed off to the people as a place of true worship of the LORD. It was not. And Amos called it out and communicated that the punishment for living contrary to the law of the Lord and engaging in false worship of the LORD would be exile.
Amos had to bring this message: (Amos 7:10-17)
10 Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel: “Amos is raising a conspiracy against you in the very heart of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words. 11 For this is what Amos is saying:
“‘Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will surely go into exile, away from their native land.’”
12 Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Get out, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there. 13 Don’t prophesy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.”
14 Amos answered Amaziah, “I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. 15 But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ 16 Now then, hear the word of the Lord. You say,
“‘Do not prophesy against Israel, and stop preaching against the descendants of Isaac.’
17 “Therefore this is what the Lord says:
“‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and daughters will fall by the sword.
Your land will be measured and divided up, and you yourself will die in a pagan country.
And Israel will surely go into exile, away from their native land.’”
Amos was called by the LORD to speak truth – both calling out sin and calling the people to return to the LORD
Speaking truth from the LORD is not an easy task. It is one that we wouldn’t take on ourselves, but when the word of the LORD touches our heart, it becomes a must to proclaim. Amos was not popular for it, but he spoke faithfully.
We will not be popular, but we must speak the word faithfully. God’s truth is what people need. As blunt and as bold as it is and regardless of how well it be received, God calls us like Amos to “Go prophesy to my people.”
You may not be headed out to tend the sheep or take care of fig trees, but be open to the opportunities God presents to share his truth in love to the people around you, the people the LORD deeply loves and cares about.
Apply: Amos was a prophet without a pedigree. He is an example of how God can use ordinary people from ordinary walks of life to be his spokespeople. To whom is God sending you today?
Prayer: Lord, give me the words to speak and the courage to share them to whomever you know needs to hear them. AMEN.