Happy Friday! Today is June 30, 2023, the final day of June! Thank you for loving the Word of God. How often we find in the Old and New Testaments God's strong encouragement to treasure His Word. Amos provides us with the other side. A line from Joni Mitchell's 'Big Yellow Taxi' still rings true: 'You don't know what you've got till it's gone.' Read on…
Today's Reading:
Amos 7,8,9; Psalms 104; Titus 2
Scripture
“‘The days are coming,’ declares the Sovereign Lord, ‘when I will send a famine through the land — not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.’” (Amos 8:11-12)
Observation
Why did people stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east? And why are we lost in a world controlled by multiple GPS systems, tracking devices, and low-orbiting satellites? I wonder... Even after mankind's significant advances, we, like the people in Amos, have forgotten God and substituted the Creator with technology and science. That's when we become disoriented and stagger from sea to sea!
Amos talks about a 'famine,' but the cause of famine doesn't start due to a lack of food. It may be because the soil is so hard or dry that crops simply cannot grow. The culture is so deprived that the seeds remain dormant, lying in wait... until the conditions change!
In Israel, the condition of people's hearts had deteriorated to such an extent that God's Word was no longer primary. It was no longer needed, let alone heeded.
Hardened ground.
This is when the prophet Amos speaks up!
Application
We can be the same. When God's Word is no longer recognized or disdained, a famine follows closely behind. We have become a nation of confused and disoriented people, wandering from sea to sea, following false guides in pursuit of what's popular or politically correct. Instead of learning from history, we repeat it. Due to this disorientation, young men and women try on different 'selves' like overcoats, until the day they realize that it is only in Christ that we truly discover who we are. Remember: we were created in the image of Christ... So the more we become like Christ, the more we become who we were created to be.
It's time to come home to Christ.
Prayer
Lord, I know that You made us in Your image, and it is in You that we find who we really are. You are the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Let there be a change in the conditions of our souls so people’s hearts awaken to the absolute truth of Your Word.
It’s time to find our way back home to You!
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