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.
Joel: Call on the Name of the Lord!
Devotions based on Week 2 of The Prophets: Joel (WATCH HERE)
Joel 2:28-32 “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions.
Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.
I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke.
The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Joel’s prophecy came during a time of devastation. A locust plague had ravaged Israel’s land, and the people were living through famine, loss, and despair. It was a time of hardship that God desired to use to wake his people from spiritual apathy and bring them back to him. Into that hardship, God spoke a word of hope: He would not only restore the land but would also pour out His Spirit on His people.
This promise wasn’t about crops, but about hearts. God was pointing forward to something greater. A day would come when His Spirit would not just come upon prophets or kings but on all people: sons and daughters, young and old, rich and poor, men and women.
It is interesting that during and after hardships is often when the Gospel is needed most and hearts are open to it. When our earthly realities crumble around us, we seek something that is more enduring, stable and hopeful. In these verses, Joel reminds us: God is not absent in disaster. He is preparing a future filled with His presence.
Centuries later, the Apostle Peter stood up in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost and quoted Joel 2:28–32 (Acts 2:16–21). The Holy Spirit had just been poured out, tongues of fire rested on the believers, and the Good News of Jesus was proclaimed in many languages.
What Joel foresaw in the middle of famine and fear came true in the middle of a different kind of turmoil. Rome occupied Israel. Jesus had been crucified. His disciples were fearful and uncertain. Yet, at that very moment, God poured out His Spirit to ignite a global movement of the Gospel.
The Spirit led 3000 to “call on the name of the Lord and be saved.” From that event on, the power of the Gospel continues to transcend evil, hardship, disaster, or opposition. The truth that all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved continues to give people hope and an eternal focus. The Day of Christ’s return is coming, but it will be great, not dreadful for all who by faith call on the name of the Lord.
Hardship became the stage for triumph. Weak disciples became bold witnesses. A fearful gathering became a Spirit-filled church. And in just a generation, the Gospel began spreading across the known world.
Joel’s prophecy isn’t only history fulfilled — it’s also a reality for us today. We live in a world scarred by violence, senseless killing, war, division, tragedy, and uncertainty. Yet the promise Joel spoke still holds: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
In every believer, the Holy Spirit has been poured out, and equips God’s people to be witnesses of hope in hardship. When tragedy strikes, the Spirit gives comfort and courage. When evil seems loudest, the Spirit empowers us to live with boldness and peace. When the world feels like it’s unraveling, the Spirit reminds us of God’s unshakable kingdom.
Just as locusts of Joel’s day and Roman oppression of the apostles’ era couldn’t stop God’s plan, neither can today’s challenges stop the spread of the Gospel. The Gospel will continue to march forward with its message of grace, forgiveness and peace. The victory belongs to Jesus!
Apply: Call on the Lord: In your struggles, turn first to Jesus. Joel reminds us salvation is for everyone who calls on His name.
Be a Witness of Hope: In a world darkened by tragedy, live as a person of light. Speak words of grace. Offer acts of kindness. Share the Gospel of Christ who saves.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank You for the promise of Joel and its fulfillment at Pentecost. Thank You for pouring out Your Spirit on all who believe, equipping us to live with hope and courage. When hardship comes, remind us that Your Gospel still triumphs. Use us as Your witnesses, that others may call on Your name and be saved. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Joel: After the devastation…
Devotions based on Week 2 of The Prophets: Joel (WATCH HERE)
It’s hard to look past devastation and consider what will happen afterwards.
“Life will never be the same” is often a phrase that comes when someone experiences personal tragedy, or a collective group of people are affected in some way.
At face value, this statement is true. The house that was rebuilt after a fire destroyed the original home is not the same. Life after the loss of a loved one is not the same as it was prior to their death. A country after a national tragedy is not the same as before.
But is it true that “life will never be the same” is always a bad thing?
Maybe there was something prior to a tragedy that needed change?
Just as the prophet Joel spoke of the impending “Day of the Lord” marked by the devastating effects of a locust swarm, so he also is given words of hope to describe what would follow. Here’s what he speaks on behalf of the LORD to his people?
Joel 2:25-27 “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—
the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm—
my great army that I sent among you.
26 You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed.
27 Then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the Lord your God,
and that there is no other; never again will my people be shamed.
The food situation as a result of the devastating locusts was hard. Crops were ruined and seeds for next year destroyed. But the Lord said he would “repay” for the years the locusts had eaten. Bumper crops? Maybe. However the Lord decided to fulfill this was up to him, but the reality was that there would again be plenty to eat, not just some, but enough to have your fill.
But what would be different among the people after the plague of locusts that wasn’t there before the plague?
Praising the name of the Lord.
The people before the locusts had lost their spiritual grounding. False gods, idols and drifting from the Lord were the norm. But after the plague? Life would not be the same. The land of Israel would once again know that the LORD is God and there is no other. Idols were disposed of. False gods dismissed.
It was a GREAT thing that “life would never be the same.” The same was godless. The aftermath was focused on the Lord.
We can’t predict the same way that Joel did, but the Lord certainly does suggest that blessings come through and after a tragedy. The greatest evidence is the resurrection following the crucifixion. God can and does work ALL things for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28). It happened at the time of Joel. The Lord continues to work this truth today.
Out of every difficult situation, the Lord calls us back to him. In every loss, there is an opportunity for the Lord to bless. In every tragedy, God can work a triumph.
For what reason? So you will know that the LORD, he is God!
Apply: What hardship have you gone through that you know see the Lord blessing you? What events in your life, as difficult as they were, allowed you to see the mercy, grace and blessing of the Lord more clearly?
Prayer: Lord, in your grace, work every hard and tragic event to the glory of your name and the advancement of your kingdom. AMEN.