But I am a procrastinator. And highly distractible. And . . . maybe a little ADD.

So perhaps you’ll understand when I tell you I’m putting poor Amos on hold for a while. We’ll come back to him, I promise.

But right now, I’m being pulled in many different directions, with my dad’s illness, the kids’ school stuff, and so forth. Especially dad’s cancer. Heavy stuff.

And as you know, Amos is a pretty heavy book. And since I’m at my load-bearing capacity, I’ve decided to leave Amos here, and come back for him later.

I do, however, need to be reminded of the supremacy and sufficiency of Christ. (I quoted that from my Ryrie Study Bible. Impressive-sounding, huh?) Sometimes, we just need to be reminded.

So if you don’t mind, I’m planning to spend a little time in Colossians. Good stuff there. I hope you’ll join me.

Love,

–Renae

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Hmmmmm . . . Do I detect a little sarcasm here?

Yes. Yes, I believe I do.

You see, Bethel and Gilgal were sacred places. The Israelites went there to worship, and to offer their sacrifices. And all the while, they carried black, sinful hearts. My, weren’t they holy?

They weren’t the only ones who carried sin into a holy place. The great J. Vernon McGee points out that on the eve of Christ’s crucifixion, when the disciples had gathered in the Upper Room to pray, that was considered a holy place. And yet, the devil himself walked right into that Upper Room along with Jesus and the Disciples. He walked there on the legs of Judas Iscariot.

Friends, did you know the devil is a regular church attender? Yes, sir-ree. He’s there every chance he gets. And the more Biblical the preaching and teaching, the more likely Satan is to become an active member.

And the sad thing is, many of us are the very ones who invite Satan in. We offer him the best pew, and fix him a nice cup of coffee. He always looks like one of us, after all.

As a matter of fact, (though I cringe to say this) he’s the spitting, mirror image of some of us, on some days. I know it’s hard to hear, but it’s the truth. Satan walks into our churches using our own legs, if we’re not careful.

Let me explain. When we go to church, we should enter a holy place. But it is only holy if we leave our petty, sinful actions outside the door. But how many churches have you known that are a cesspool of squabbles, a virtual warzone of opposing opinions? How many churches have you attended where gossip, slander, and mean-spiritedness are the weapons of choice? Where holiness is mocked, while church members engage in covert, lude, sinful behavior?

I hope none. But for me, the number is high. I’ve attended churches where I needed emotional chain-mail just to survive Sunday School. I’ve seen esteemed members engage in behaviors that even the most un-churched people would condemn as wrong. And, I’m sorry to say, at times I’ve gotten caught up in such drama myself. And when I have, I was a willing taxicab for the Evil One, transporting him right into the very place that is supposed to be reserved for meeting with God.

Friends, go back and read Amos’s sarcasm in verses 4 and 5. Are we guilty? If so, we need to stop. We need to repent, and say we’re sorry, and ask God to forgive us. Then, we need to guard our hearts, and not allow Satan to enter our churches—or any other place for that matter—on our legs. And we need to faithfully pray for our church leaders and fellow church members, that they will guard their hearts as well.

Dear Father, Forgive me for allowing Satan to work through me. Help me to be more careful about letting him in. Help me to remain so close to You and Your righteousness that Satan will stay far away. Amen

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All I have to say is, “Ouch.”

I mean, really. What woman wants to be called a cow? What an insult!

But before we move on to the meaning of these verses, let’s get a little background information. The people Amos addressed were cattlemen. God had blessed them with the lush, green pastures of Bashan, a territory east of the Jordan River. Their cows were strong, sleek and well-fed. They were also typical cattle; they’d trample the smaller, weaker cows to get to the best grass. They’d even trample over fences, if they saw something  better on the other side. The selfish cows.

Some people think Amos addressed the sleek, well-dressed, well-fed Israelite women here. You know the ones – they nagged and bossed and manipulated their husbands to get them what they wanted, no matter the cost. Others think he addressed all the wealthy Israelites, both men and women. I tend to agree with the second interpretation, but it doesn’t really matter. No matter who Amos referred to, the lesson applies to us all.

The Israelites clung piously to their religious practices, yet they took advantage of the poor and lived pretty much however they wanted. They fed their carnal, selfish desires, and stopped at nothing to satiate their hunger for lavish, excessive living. They looked pretty on the outside, but they were rotten where it counted.

James 1:27 tells us, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” In other words, the Israelites were doing the exact opposite of what pleases God. Instead of helping the needy and less fortunate, they ran right over them, leaving them even needier and more less fortunate. Instead of keeping themselves from being polluted by the world, they did nothing to curb their carnal, fleshly desires.

This breaks my heart, for many of our churches are near mirror-images of Amos’s audience. We go to church and cling to our religious rituals. We sing. We doze through the sermon. We have big ‘ol potluck dinners where we stuff ourselves. We have our church bazaars and our Sunday School socials.

But are we really helping the poor? Not just the financially poor, but also the poor in spirit? I mean, are we really getting our hands dirty and helping them? Are we looking into their eyes and listening to their stories and filling up their empty, impoverished souls with the love of God?

Are we keeping ourselves from being polluted by the world? Are our thoughts and desires the same as God’s thoughts and desires, or are we distracted by wanting a bigger house or a fancy pool in our back yard or sleek new clothes and collagen and a facelift and a new car? Are we gossiping and slandering with no thought to how our words wound the spirits of our victims? Are we sneaking around, having affairs or extra-marital sex or viewing pornography?

Friends, have we allowed ourselves to become polluted?

Not that it’s wrong to have a fancy house or a swimming pool or nice clothes. It’s not. What’s wrong is when worldly things occupy our thoughts, when the desire for those things causes us to ignore God’s ways, which are always better. Many times, when God sees that we genuinely want to please Him, He’ll bless us with material things, which is pretty cool.

But when we become like those sleek, fat cows, pushing aside anyone and everyone, demanding food for our carnal cravings, God is not pleased. And when we pretend to want to please Him, when in reality we only want to please ourselves, it makes Him sick. It makes Him very, very angry.

When He blesses us with green pastures, we must be careful stewards of those blessings, and look out for the smaller, weaker among us. And we must never, ever worship the pasture itself, instead of worshiping the One who provided it.

Dear Father, I want to please You. I don’t want to be polluted and dirty. Help me to keep a lookout for people who need Your love, and show me how to best share it with them. Adjust my thoughts and desires away from myself, and onto You.

Amen

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Amos 3:12 – 15 “This is what the Lord says: ‘As a shepherd saves from the lion’s mouth only two leg bones or a piece of an ear, so will the Israelites be saved, those who sit in Samaria on the edge of their beds and in Damascus on their couches.’ 

‘Hear this and testify against the house of Jacob’, declares the Lord, the Lord God Almighty. ‘On the day I will punish Israel for her sins, I will destroy the altars of Bethel; the horns of the altar will be cut off and fall to the ground. I will tear down the winter house along with the summer house; the houses adorned with ivory will be destroyed and the mansions will be demolished.’ “

During most of Israel’s history, the Israelites had a pretty equal class system. Sure, some were wealthier than others, but all in all, most people looked out for everyone else, and everyone had what they needed. But at this time, the division between the classes had become extreme. The wealthy took advantage of the poor in the worst ways. The wealthy had summer homes and winter homes, with high-dollar interior design made all of ivory.

Impressive stuff.

Now, these people were accustomed to getting what they wanted. When they heard God was planning to smite them, many of them probably thought, “Well, I’ll just hide.” But according to Amos, there was nowhere to run to, Baby. Nowhere to hide.

Back in verse nine, God said he’d tear down Israel’s fortresses. Lest anybody think they’d be safe hiding out in the military camp, and letting the army protect them, well . . . think again.

Verse fourteen tells us God would destroy the temple. At that time, a fugitive could seek refuge by clinging to the horns of God’s holy altar. It was considered sacreligious to kill someone there. But though the temple had been dedicated to God, this was the same temple where wealthy Israelites had lain on stolen garments, gotten drunk on stolen wine, and participated in temple prostitution. Needless to say, that temple didn’t hold any sentimental value with the Almighty. He would destroy it, no matter who clung to the altar.

Finally, these socialites may have thought they’d just flee to their summer home, or their winter home.

Well, la-dee-dah. Aren’t they special, to have not one, but two places of refuge. Luxurious places, at that.

God was not impressed. He planned to destroy everything and everyone. He had given them chance after chance after chance to repent. They were out of chances.

Ruins at Samaria

It may sound harsh, friends, but it’s not really. After all, God’s patience with the Israelites far exceeds my own patience, and I’m a pretty patient person. I’ll forgive you once. Twice. Three times, even. But I have my limits. You hurt me in the same way more than five or six or ten or twelve times, I’m eventually, probably, going to write you off. But not God. His patience had held out for years. Decades. Centuries, even.

But now, He’d had enough.

Friends, His patience is long, but it does have an end. I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t want to find myself at the end of that place. I don’t want to run out of chances. Gee . . . I guess I ought to take a good, hard look at my life, and at my sin, and turn things around while I’m still somewhere in the middle.

The beautiful thing about God, though, is that we really can’t hide from Him. Just as we can’t hide from His justice, we also can’t hide from His love. No matter where we find ourselves, He is never far away. He loves us, and He waits with open arms for us to run to Him.

Thank You, God, that there is no place I can go from Your presence. I love you. 

Amen

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I was a sophomore in college. He cheated on me, then dumped me. Yep, that’s right. The two-timing scalawag made a fool of me, and I was humiliated. Good thing I was young, though. Within a couple of weeks, I had moved on. But still, it didn’t help my pride any when one day, I publicly tripped and fell, right in front of this guy who, needless to say wasn’t on my top-ten-list-of-favorite-people. Yes, that’s right. I fell flat on my derriere, and he saw the whole thing. Then, to make matters worse, he came over and helped me up.

Man.

Talk about a low point.

Now friends, God knows all about low points and humiliation. Yes, He’s a loving God. But when we refuse—I mean absolutely refuse to repent and do right, God will do whatever it takes to get our attention. And sometimes, that includes humiliation.

Ashdod was a Philistine city. According to Amos, God planned to invite Philistia and Egypt—some of Israel’s cruelest neighbors—to witness Israel’s sins. And to watch her punishment, too. Not only would Israel get taught a lesson; they’d do so while their worst enemies watched.

Ouch.

Why must God be so cruel?

Well, it’s like this. He’s not cruel. But He does make sure the punishment fits the crime. Israel had sinned, and God gave her a slap on the hand. Israel ignored the warning, and continued sinning. God slapped a little harder. But Israel ignored God’s repeated warnings, time and again, until she finally became deaf to God’s call. Eventually, the lines between right and wrong had blurred so severely, Israel forgot how to tell the difference. Sin’s hold on her was so great, she didn’t even recognize God’s voice any more.

Sin does that. In the beginning, we feel terrible, knowing we’ve gone against our God, against our principals. But the next time is a little easier. And the next time and the next time until eventually, we don’t feel bad at all. As a matter of fact, we don’t even remember what it felt like—that thing called guilt.

Sin’s power is strong, my friends. It causes spiritual amnesia, making us forget who we are and what we stand for. And in order to break its hold on us, sometimes God has to allow some pretty severe consequences in our lives. I’m so glad He loves me enough to break me, to humiliate me. I’m so glad He doesn’t just give up, wash His mighty hands of my sorry self, and say, “Forget her. She’s hopeless.”

No, He won’t ever do that, where His children are concerned. He loves us so much, He will show His ferocity and might, and allow our total and complete humiliation, if that’s what it takes to make us remember who we are and Whose we are.

I hope I can always remember, before it gets to that point.

Dear Father, Forgive me for my stubbornness. Help me to repent before sin causes me to forget who I am in You. 

Amen

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(Here I am in The Promise, as Jesus brings my daughter back to life.)

So, with no further ado, here is our next entry in Amos.

Amos 3:6-8 “When a trumpet sounds in a city, do not the people tremble? When disaster comes to a city, has not the LORD caused it? Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets. The lion has roared—who will not fear? The Sovereign LORD has spoken—who can but prophesy?”

Mark and I were newly married. He was fresh out of seminary, and I was in my early years of teaching. He pastored a tiny church in the Texas Hill Country, in a county which boasted the oldest average age in the United States. It was a retirement community, and young people were looked upon with suspicion.

After visiting one of our prospective church members one evening, we found ourselves down a dark country road, with nothing but the faint stars and our headlights to guide us. And, it was raining. We drove at a snail’s pace, because we could only see a few yards in front of the car.

Before we knew it, we saw tell-tale red-and-white lights flashing behind us. “May I see your driver’s license and registration, please?” the officer asked.

Mark handed the items over.

“What is your business in these parts?”

“I’m a pastor, out on visitation.”

The man shined his flashlight in my twenty-three-year-old eyes, then looked back at Mark as if to say, “Sure, you are.” He then wrote my husband a ticket for speeding, for running a stop sign, and listed “suspicious behavior” as well.

I’m not kidding. Really, how could I make something like that up?

First of all, we weren’t speeding. We were barely crawling.

Second, there was no stop sign. We went back the next day—in broad daylight—and checked.

Third, the only thing suspicious about us was that we happened to be born about half a century later than most of the residents of that county. For shame, for shame.

My point in sharing this sad little tale is this: God doesn’t work that way. He doesn’t dole out punishments for make-believe crimes, just because He doesn’t like us. On the contrary. He does punish us. But He never sends punishment without first issueing a warning.

In most cases, He issues warning after warning. After warning.

Friends, when God speaks, we need to listen. He speaks through His Word, which is more up-to-date than the evening news. As the great J. Vernon McGee said, “Tomorrow morning’s paper will be out of date by noon when the afternoon edition comes off the press. But the Word of God will be just as good the next day and on to the end of time.”

He also issues warnings through the Holy Spirit. Any true child of God knows when we are going against God’s ways, because we feel it in our spirits. His Spirit whispers gentle warnings to our spirits, wooing us away from our sinful behavior, back to the safety of God’s arms.

But God is no wimp, dear friends. He doesn’t sit idly by, pacing and biting his nails and fretting that we aren’t behaving. His threats are never empty. He is a fierce God as well as a loving one, and that ferocity is to be feared and awed and revered. When we ignore His warnings, trouble will come. No doubt about it.

Is the trumpet sounding in your life, my friend? Is the lion roaring? It’s not too late. It’s never too late for us to drop our sinful behavior and flee to our Father, who loves us, and who only wants what is best for us.

Dear Father, Help me to heed Your warnings in my life, in my family, in my career, in everything I do. Thank You for Your warnings, for I know they are intended to keep me from disaster. Amen

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Do you like it when someone asks you a question without expecting an answer? Do you think question upon question is a good form of communication? Do you think Amos was a fan of rhetorical questions?

Well, to answer my own questions, I’m not sure. Sometimes. And yes.

Amos liked to ask obvious questions that didn’t require an answer. Of course the lion doesn’t roar if he has no prey. He creeps about, in stealth mode, until he catches his prey off-guard, and then he pounces.

Then, he roars.

Birds don’t tend to set traps for themselves, either. And they won’t get caught in a snare unless someone else sets it.

The obvious answers to these questions bring clarity to God’s judgment on Israel. The lion catches his prey, and he roars. The hunter sets a snare, and the bird is caught. Israel continues to ignore God’s laws, God pours down His judgment on them.

Friends, sin always has consequences. It destroys us. It hurts the people around us. And it invites God’s wrath.

If we don’t want the effects of sin to twist and tangle into our lives, we must avoid the cause. We must stay far away from sin. And when sin approaches, we should run the other way.

The good news is, righteousness has effects, too. While the effects of sin leave much to be desired, the effects of living upright, holy lives are beautiful and amazing and beyond description. He promises peace. Joy everylasting. Eternal life.

I don’t know about you, but those are some effects I’d like to experience more.

Dear Father, Help my life to be cause for Your blesssings, not Your anger. Amen.

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A couple of weeks ago, our family visited SeaWorld. While there, my husband and son rode the Steel Eel like, forty times. They loved the feel of hanging suspended in the air while turning upside down and doing loop-to-loops.

The girls in our family have more sense.

Now, my dear husband knows better than to coax me on such a ride. Once upon a time, I enjoyed putting my life in that kind of peril. But now, my bones don’t seem to snap back into place as easily as they once did. I’ll stay on the ground, thank you very much.

Our daughter, on the other hand, is young. Her bones work just fine. My husband tried every way he could think of to get her to share the ride with him. He begged. He pleaded. He offered various bribes. Each attempt gained the same response. “No, Daddy. I don’t want to ride that. It doesn’t seem like fun to me.”

Finally, she fluttered her eyelashes, kissed him on the cheek, turned around and walked the opposite direction, leaving her poor daddy in her dust. There was no way she was going to ride The Steel Eel. “I’m going to the Shamu show. I’ll see you later, Dad.”

Oh, well. I guess two can’t ride together unless they are agreed. If my husband wanted to enjoy Charis’s presence, he’d have to go to Shamu Stadium.

God looked at His children, His chosen ones, and saw them walking in sin and rebellion. He wasn’t going to change directions and walk in sin, just so He could be with them.

Nope.

He’s God, and He will never altar His course to accomodate our sinful cravings. If we want His presence in our lives, we have to agree with Him. We have to walk His path.

The problem with the Israelites, and with us, as well, is that we want God to join us. We want Him to agree with us. And when our actions go against God’s character, we want Him to bless us, anyway.

It doesn’t work that way, my friends. Though He does pour out some blessings, whether we deserve them or not, we will experience a higher concentration of blessings when we walk with Him. When we agree with Him. When we live for Him.

God is a gentleman, and He will never chain us or force us to walk with Him. But He won’t change directions for us, either. He invites us to join Him. He pleads with us, as He did with the Israelites time and again, to be His traveling companions. He even promises unending benefits, for those who choose to walk His path.

Whether or not we walk with Him, however, is entirely up to us.

Dear Father, Thank You for loving me. Help me to agree with You, so I can enjoy Your presence in my life. Amen

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I must have said it to my parents a thousand times. “But everyone else does it.” All the other girls wore those too-short skirts. All the other kids went cruising with their friends in that unsafe part of town.

Mom and Dad’s response was always the same. “You’re not everyone else. You’re my child.”

Now, I say the same thing to my children. And while I may correct someone else’s child if I see he or she is in danger, I’ll correct my own children more swiftly and thoroughly. After all, they’re mine. They carry my heart.

Just as we place boundaries around our children because we love them and don’t want to see them hurt, God’s laws are issued because of love. He doesn’t want us to sin, because sin destroys us. His laws are like danger signs, to keep us from falling off the cliff. And when we disobey those laws, His love demands our punishment.

But we don’t like to hear about punishment, do we? Personally, I’d rather blog about His love, and never mention the punishment part. Personally, I wish He’d just turn His head from my rebellion. After all, if He really loved me, wouldn’t He just let me get away with stuff? How can punishment possibly reflect love?

You and I both know the answer to that. A loving parent will endure a child’s anger in order to save that child’s life, or to give him a better life. And since God is the most loving parent ever, His love drives Him to punish His wayward children.

Swiftly.

Thouroughly.

In the above passage, God speaks to His family. He says, “I chose you. I called you to be Mine. And since you’re destroying yourselves and others with your rebellion, I’m going to punish you. Hopefully, you’ll quit being stubborn and learn your lesson.”

Friends, God doesn’t like to punish us any more than we like to punish our children. He loves us, and He wants only the best for us. That’s why, when we stubbornly refuse to listen and obey, He will punish us to save us.

I know. Ouch.

But isn’t it great to know He loves us that much?

Dear Father, Thank You for Your love and Your discipline, which walk hand in hand to lead me to Your peace, Your joy, and life everlasting. Amen

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My family and I spent last week in Laredo, Texas doing construction, helping with Vacation Bible School and Sports Camp, conducting door to door surveys, and leading a ladies’ Bible study. It was such a great week, even with the hundred and forty degree weather. Okay, not quite a hundred and forty. It was only 109.

Really. That’s how hot it was.

Needless to say, though I took my trusty laptop with me, by the end of the day I was too wiped out from the heat to spell my name correctly, much less write a post about Amos.

But we’re back now, comfortably sleeping in our own beds with the air conditioning set at a ridiculously low temperature. It’s good to be home.

Love,

Renae

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