14 day plan

The Lion Roars

Day 12 of 14

CSB

Amos 5:21-24

21I hate, I despise, your feasts!

I can’t stand the stench

of your solemn assemblies.

22Even if you offer me

your burnt offerings and grain offerings,

I will not accept them;

I will have no regard

for your fellowship offerings of fattened cattle.

23Take away from me the noise of your songs!

I will not listen to the music of your harps.

24But let justice flow like water,

and righteousness, like an unfailing stream.

Revoting Religion

Sin can fool us into thinking that God is more interested in external ritual conformity than heartfelt obedience. This attitude taints even practices which God himself commanded – like the three kinds of offerings in this passage. Instead of pleasing God, they inflame his anger.

This is why we need Jesus. One aspect of his sacrifice was his heartfelt obedience to God in giving himself for us (Hebrews 10:8-9). We are not saved by religious practices – even good, right practices like prayer, Bible reading, and going to church. We are saved by Jesus Christ. He calls us to worship him by loving people – especially inconvenient people – in all of our life, not just the ‘religious’ bits.

Think of someone – preferably a fellow Christian – whom you find really annoying. Do something to care for them and bless them this week. If you think this would be traumatic for you or the other person, talk to a church leader, or some other mature Christian friend, about it first.

Prayer: Father God, forgive us for the weakness, selfishness, and indifference in the way we supposedly ‘worship’ you. Thank you for sending your Son to worship you properly, the way you deserve, on our behalf. Thank you that in your mercy, the high point of his worship was his giving himself on the cross for us who ignore you. By your Spirit, change us every day, to live for you more and more. Amen.

© 2017 Holman Bible Publishers

Days

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5
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7
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10
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12
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14

Amos 5:1-27

Lamentation for Israel

1Listen to this message that I am singing for you, a lament, house of Israel:

2She has fallen;

Virgin Israel will never rise again.

She lies abandoned on her land

with no one to raise her up.

3For the Lord God says:

The city that marches out a thousand strong

will have only a hundred left,

and the one that marches out a hundred strong

will have only ten left in the house of Israel.

Seek God and Live

4For the Lord says to the house of Israel:

Seek me and live!

5Do not seek Bethel

or go to Gilgal

or journey to Beer-sheba,

for Gilgal will certainly go into exile,

and Bethel will come to nothing.

6Seek the Lord and live,

or he will spread like fire

throughout the house of Joseph;

it will consume everything

with no one at Bethel to extinguish it.

7Those who turn justice into wormwood

also throw righteousness to the ground.

8The one who made the Pleiades and Orion,

who turns darkness into dawn

and darkens day into night,

who summons the water of the sea

and pours it out over the surface of the earth —

the Lord is his name.

9He brings destruction on the strong,

and it falls on the fortress.

10They hate the one who convicts the guilty

at the city gate,

and they despise the one who speaks with integrity.

11Therefore, because you trample on the poor

and exact a grain tax from him,

you will never live in the houses of cut stone

you have built;

you will never drink the wine

from the lush vineyards

you have planted.

12For I know your crimes are many

and your sins innumerable.

They oppress the righteous, take a bribe,

and deprive the poor of justice at the city gates.

13Therefore, those who have insight will keep silent

at such a time,

for the days are evil.

14Pursue good and not evil

so that you may live,

and the Lord, the God of Armies,

will be with you

as you have claimed.

15Hate evil and love good;

establish justice at the city gate.

Perhaps the Lord, the God of Armies, will be gracious

to the remnant of Joseph.

16Therefore the Lord, the God of Armies, the Lord, says:

There will be wailing in all the public squares;

they will cry out in anguish in all the streets.

The farmer will be called on to mourn,

and professional mourners to wail.

17There will be wailing in all the vineyards,

for I will pass among you.

The Lord has spoken.

The Day of the Lord

18Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord!

What will the day of the Lord be for you?

It will be darkness and not light.

19It will be like a man who flees from a lion

only to have a bear confront him.

He goes home and rests his hand against the wall

only to have a snake bite him.

20Won’t the day of the Lord

be darkness rather than light,

even gloom without any brightness in it?

21I hate, I despise, your feasts!

I can’t stand the stench

of your solemn assemblies.

22Even if you offer me

your burnt offerings and grain offerings,

I will not accept them;

I will have no regard

for your fellowship offerings of fattened cattle.

23Take away from me the noise of your songs!

I will not listen to the music of your harps.

24But let justice flow like water,

and righteousness, like an unfailing stream.

25“House of Israel, was it sacrifices and grain offerings that you presented to me during the forty years in the wilderness? 26But you have taken up Sakkuth your king and Kaiwan your star god, images you have made for yourselves. 27So I will send you into exile beyond Damascus.” The Lord, the God of Armies, is his name. He has spoken.

© 2017 Holman Bible Publishers