Morning Musing: Amos 9:2-3

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“If they dig down to Sheol, from there my hand will take them; if they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down. If they hide on the top of Carmel, from there I will track them down and seize them; if they conceal themselves from my sight on the sea floor, from there I will command the sea serpent to bite them.”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever tried to get along with someone who was set in his ways? In those types of situations, as long as you are willing to do things their way, you’re not going to have any problems with them. If, on the other hand, you try to introduce some variety to their routine…well…you’re probably asking for trouble. Just for fun don’t ask my wife and kids if I’m right about that. As someone who might be able to speak to this with…firsthand knowledge…I prefer to think of being set in ones ways as having a consistent character just like God does. Yeah, that’s it. I’ll go with that. And the thing about dealing with someone who has a consistent character is that it’s great if you operate consistently with it. If you don’t…things can get a bit messier.

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Digging in Deeper: Amos 8:11

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“Look, the days are coming — this is the declaration of the Lord God — when I will send a famine through the land: not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

Did you ever get separated from your parents when you were a kid? I’ll tell you a story of my own in just a second, but there are few things that feel scarier than that. This fear is not rooted primarily in the thought of what could happen to you without them nearby, but rather in something entirely simpler than that: being alone. We weren’t made to be alone. Being separated from people is scary. Feeling separated from God should be even more so. He obviously thinks so in light of what He says to the people here.

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Digging in Deeper: Amos 7:5-6

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“Then I said, “Lord God, please stop! How will Jacob survive since he is so small?” The Lord relented concerning this. “This will not happen either,” said the Lord God.”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

What good is the church? If the church suddenly disappeared from the world, would it make any difference? If you count yourself a follower of Jesus, your knee-jerk anger to that is probably a quick, “Absolutely it would!” but think about it a little more than that. Make it personal. If you are a church person, if your church suddenly vanished from its community, would anyone notice? Unfortunately, for many churches, the answer is no. Yet God intends for His people to have a transformatively significant impact on the world around them. Amos gives us an example of that here.

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Digging in Deeper: Amos 6:1

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“Woe to those who are at ease in Zion and to those who feel secure on the hill of Samaria — the notable people in this first of the nations, those the house of Israel comes to.”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the things Jesus talked about more than just about anything else was money. He spoke frequently about our attitude toward our money and condemned our tendency to trust in it more than we ought. He warned against trying to serve two masters—God and money. On one occasion, He commanded a rich young man to actively sell all of his possessions before he could come follow Him. It’s almost like He was trying to say something. It wasn’t something new though. He was right in line with what the prophets of old had been saying for a long time. Amos gives us a great example here.

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Love’s Transformation

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Knowing we’re supposed to love the hard to love people in our lives, even knowing the theological reasons for that, is one thing. Actually seeing it in practice is something entirely different. This past Sunday as we continued in our series, Hard to Love, we took a look at a remarkable story of the kind of transformation that can take place when we let love loose into our hard to love situations. You don’t want to miss this.

Love’s Transformation

Let me start this morning with a tough question.  In fact, I want you to close your eyes in order to answer this one.  How would you respond if your child was murdered?  That’s an emotional question, I know, so go ahead and feel that emotion for a minute.  Let me show you a picture.  This is a picture of Mary Johnson and her son.  In 1993 Mary’s son, Laramiun Byrd, was 20 years old.  One night he went to a party with some friends.  As perhaps many young men are wont to do he did a little bit of fronting at the party to the benefit of his ego and his image in front of his friends.  Now, this might not be such a big deal on a normal night, but this particular party was also attended by a 16-year-old young man named O’Shea Israel.  O’Shea took up Laramium’s challenge and did a bit of fronting of his own.  After all, he couldn’t be made to look bad in front of his own friends.  Things digressed from there and the next morning Mary got a call asking if Laramiun had come home the night before.  He hadn’t.  Not long after some officers arrived to let her know that he had been murdered at the party.  In an instant—perhaps just as you imagined—her world completely fell apart. 

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