- Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel! Amos 4:12 – Imagine a loved one of yours blindly walking into a busy street. You first yell at them to stop them, but they don’t listen. You tap them on the shoulder, but still no change. You then try to pull them hard, but they resist and keep going towards the danger. Finally you decide to run and tackle them hard to the ground before the get hit by a car. Looking at that example, would you say you did all that out of anger or love for them? Love of course. Yes, you had to take serious measures to stop them, maybe even hurting them when you tackled them, but that was far better than them being killed in the street. Such is the picture happening with God and His people. Israel had turned to sinful ways of worship, but scripture says they loved it. God then sought to turn them away from this path of sin for He knew it would lead to their death. Throughout the chapter we see God increasingly having to get more severe in His approach to stop them for each time they refused to change their course. In our verse, the Lord finally says to His people, prepare to meet me then, get ready for a flying tackle to the ground. While God bringing such things on His people may look mean, remember the example earlier. All this was done out of love for His people so they wouldn’t meet the eternity of Hell they were heading towards. Know God is willing to “flying tackle” us too if we aren’t listening to Him. No, that’s not His desire, He’d rather us turn with His subtle nudges instead, but He will go to the extreme for us too. Why? Because He loves us and wants us to follow Him. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 3292
- Come to Bethel, and transgress; to Gilgal, and multiply transgression; bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days; offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving of that which is leavened, and proclaim freewill offerings, publish them; for so you love to do, O people of Israel!” declares the Lord God. (v.4-5) Little Bible study tip: when something is repeated in a passage, usually that means the writer is trying to draw our eyes to that point. So what do we see repeated five times in this chapter? “Yet you did not return to me.” After so many different times of God trying to tear their attention away from fake, un-fulfilling lives, can you guess what they turned to? Right back to their worship of false gods, even multiplying the amount of their sinful acts to them. That’s what today’s passage is all about. Those sacrifices, tithes, and offerings were not being given to God, but to some fake idols. It’s heartbreaking to see how someone could return back to their hurtful lifestyle even when God is stretching out His hand to help them to a better place. Possibly you’ve been at that same point too. Having to make that choice of do I continue or do I change. Maybe you’ve even chosen the same path they choose which was to continue. Let my next few words then sink deep into your story. It’s not too late to change directions. If you’re still breathing, those breaths are God’s blessing to you to give you another chance to return to Him or come to Him for the first time. Please don’t be deceived into thinking that you have time to change directions later. You may, but you also may not. Don’t miss the life you could be having with Him all because you couldn’t let go of some temporary filling sin. God is so much more fulfilling than any life sin could give you. – Daily DEVO 46
- “I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places, yet you did not return to me,” declares the Lord. Amos 4:6 – As we move through these books by the prophets, we’re going to come across this theme often. Where God sought to get the people’s attention away from their sin, but they refused to turn their focus back onto Him. We see God holding back food, holding back rain, sending mildew, and even sending them plagues like He did to the Egyptians of old. Each effort though from God to get the attention back on Him and away from the things that were hurting them didn’t work. Allow yourself to be open to when God is trying to get your focus off of something that’s going to hurt you, unlike the people spoken of in our passage. Spend time in scripture and actually listen to what God is speaking to you through it. Listen to when a trusted brother or sister in Christ is speaking into your story. Listen when the Holy Spirit begins laying something on your heart. Know that God is still able to speak to us and is speaking. The question is are you listening and are you willing to obey what you hear from Him. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 1195
- “Come to Bethel, and transgress; to Gilgal, and multiply transgression; bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days; offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving of that which is leavened, and proclaim freewill offerings, publish them; for so you love to do, O people of Israel!” declares the Lord God. Amos4:4-5 – To understand what’s going on, know Bethel and Gilgal were centers of great idol worship at this time. The people of Israel were coming here, following the commands God laid out about tithes, sacrifices, and offerings…but to these false gods instead of The Lord. What’s even more saddening is the people were zealous in doing so. The passion God desired His people to have in following Him they gave to these false gods and worshipped them in the ways God wanted to be worshipped. Can we look at our life and see anywhere in it where we have given the passion we should have for following Christ to something else? What right now has your fire? What’s keeping you up at night, it’s what’s your mind is thinking on during the day, your daily calendar has to work within the bounds of this thing. It’s so easy to let something other than our pursuit of Jesus have our passion, so let’s be careful it doesn’t. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 2080
Daily DEVO 