- Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Amos 5:22-24 – Passages like this should cause you to pause and ask some questions. For what we are seeing told to us from scripture is that God isn’t accepting offering or worship from His people even though they are seeking to give it to Him. Why would God refuse such things if His people were willing to give it to Him? Because the Lord knew their heart and saw the whole picture. Israel at his time was oppressing the poor and corrupting the justice of the courts to benefit the wealthy. The Lord was witness to this injustice and unrighteousness happening towards His people by His people, yet those doing the oppressing still sought to offer sacrifices and worship to the Lord. The thought was “as long as I’m keeping up my ceremony of worship, God will be happy and I can do what I want.” Clearly from our passage that’s not agreeable to the Lord, instead of sacrifice He wanted justice for those oppressed and righteousness to flow once again in His people. Know today if there is active sin in your life, a worship of God that is just ceremony and superficial done to simply appease God so you can keep after your sin is not what God wants. What God wants more than your offerings and church attendance is a heart that no longer chases after sin. In fact, God doesn’t even want your worship if your heart is after sin. He’d rather you stop the charade of church and get right with Him first for that’s what truly matters to Him. However then unrighteousness or injustice is within your hearts, make the change today so righteousness and justice can flow once again like they should. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 3293
- Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? (v.25) It’s a clear sign that a relationship has some serious issues when appreciation and love is shown only in the desperate times. Example: A guy is selfish and rude to his girl until the moment when she says they are done. Then the guy becomes the most grateful, loving gentleman you’ve ever seen because he doesn’t want to lose the girl. Thing is, it’s too late. That loving, caring gentleman should have come out and been the way he was always with her a long time ago if there he ever wanted a chance for this to work. That’s what we see unfolding here in Amos. Amos is telling them it’s too late. They had their chance to offer and sacrifice. God gave them more than enough chances to be the grateful, loving people that they needed to be. It just wasn’t until them moment they realized that things weren’t going to go well for them that a swift, and fake, change of character took place. That’s just not the change God’s seeking after. A character that changes in these moments is only one that is self-preserving, self-absorbed, and well selfish. Key term in all that is “self.” That term just doesn’t fit in any healthy relationship. It has to be more than just about you. God’s seeking a relationship with us that has “self” removed and it’s about “us.” An “Us” character is exactly what God brings into the relationship. He’s all about how can He be everything we need. God is longing for us to bring an “Us” to the table and seek that same question of “How can I be what God needs me to be” in more of our lives than just the times when things aren’t looking good for us. Let’s be what God is needing us to be for Him before it’s too late and we lost our chance to be what God actually needed us to be for Him in this life. – Daily DEVO 47
- I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. Amos 5:21-23 – When the wrong heart and motive is attached to these sort of things, it’s not honoring or pleasing to God. Your sacrifices, your offerings, even your voice in worship, if your heart isn’t after God under all that, it’s not a pleasing thing to God. We see God throughout scripture calling us to check ourselves before stepping into worship of Him. To check to see if our heart and mind are in the right place. Can we come to God when it’s not, of course, but know what is pleasing to God is a heart that’s undivided in its devotion to Him and is longing to be in the worship we’re speaking of today. So as we step into our church services today, where’s your heart at? Is the attitude of your heart when offered going to be a pleasing sacrifice to Him? I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 1196
- For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel: “Seek me and live; but do not seek Bethel, and do not enter into Gilgal or cross over to Beersheba; for Gilgal shall surely go into exile, and Bethel shall come to nothing.” Amos 5:4-5 – God is calling His people to seek Him and follow Him. To live their lives in pursuit of Him. What we also see in the passage is a given about of pursuit of Jesus, but something we also may not think enough on. Pursuing Jesus means we can’t pursue other things like we are anymore. God tells them to seek Himself, but also don’t seek these other cities and the false gods within them. In order to fully seek God like we’re called to we’re going to have to stop seeking some things we’re going hard after right now. Your glory and seeking God’s glory can’t happen at the same time. Your will and seeking God’s will can’t happen at the same time. You choice to follow Jesus means choosing to not follow certain things in your story anymore. What then is something that would need to be unfollowed in order for you to fully follow Jesus? I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 2081
Daily DEVO 