September 18th, 2015
Today’s reading from Encounter with God

Prepare to Meet Your God

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Opening Prayer

Holy Spirit, may the truth sown in my heart bear fruit in my life and bring glory to God.

Read Amos 9:1-10

[1] I saw the Lord standing by the altar, and he said: “Strike the tops of the pillars so that the thresholds shake. Bring them down on the heads of all the people; those who are left I will kill with the sword. Not one will get away, none will escape. [2] Though they dig down to the depths below, from there my hand will take them. Though they climb up to the heavens above, from there I will bring them down. [3] Though they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, there I will hunt them down and seize them. Though they hide from my eyes at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent to bite them. [4] Though they are driven into exile by their enemies, there I will command the sword to slay them. “I will keep my eye on them for harm and not for good.” [5] The Lord, the LORD Almighty- he touches the earth and it melts, and all who live in it mourn; the whole land rises like the Nile, then sinks like the river of Egypt; [6] he builds his lofty palace in the heavens and sets its foundation on the earth; he calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land- the LORD is his name. [7] “Are not you Israelites the same to me as the Cushites?” declares the LORD. “Did I not bring Israel up from Egypt, the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir? [8] “Surely the eyes of the Sovereign LORD are on the sinful kingdom. I will destroy it from the face of the earth. Yet I will not totally destroy the descendants of Jacob,” declares the LORD. [9] “For I will give the command, and I will shake the people of Israel among all the nations as grain is shaken in a sieve, and not a pebble will reach the ground. [10] All the sinners among my people will die by the sword, all those who say, ‘Disaster will not overtake or meet us.’

Scripture taken from the THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Meditate

God is not just the God of Israel; he is God of the universe and he controls all nations!

Think Further

“Prepare to meet your God,” said Amos (4:12). The meeting might be anticipated with pleasure or fear, depending on your relationship with God. We have seen that the Israelites anticipated it with pleasure. They were God’s chosen people, upholding the covenant with lavish, exuberant and enjoyable (to them) worship. God must be blessing them because the nation was prospering materially (except for the poor). When they met God he would destroy their enemies and reward them.

Amos turned that expectation upside down. Far from keeping the covenant, they had flouted it. They were now God’s enemies and ripe for destruction. Meeting their God meant destruction. This final judgment oracle sums it all up. It expands on the threat to the sanctuaries and nation in 7:9. Their judgment is declared inevitable. Now it is declared inescapable. There is no place to hide and escape from the Lord, who is Creator of the cosmos.

The Lord is not just God of Israel. He is sovereign over the history of all nations, whether it be the Cushites living on the edge of Israel’s known world or their traditional enemies, the Philistines and Arameans. In that sense the Exodus did not make Israel special. They could not complacently rely on that historical event. What mattered was the covenant relationship to which it led. They had twisted its meaning and violated it. God was not an indulgent national protector to be kept sweet by lavish worship, but the almighty Creator and Lord of history who had graciously delivered them from slavery and given them his laws to live by. As his chosen people they were especially morally accountable to him (3:1-2).

There is a glimmer of hope. Destruction of the nation need not mean total destruction. Disaster would be a sieving process. A remnant covenant people of God might survive it.

Apply

What mental pictures do you have of God? What do they convey about the nature of God? From where have they come?

Closing prayer

Lord, show me ways in which I have a distorted picture of You and help me gain a truer picture through Your Word.

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