Dave's Diary

Daily Reading: Amos 5

Away with the noise of your songs!
    I will not listen to the music of your harps.
But let justice roll on like a river,
    righteousness like a never-failing stream! (Amos 5:23-24)

As we consider our call to be a blessing, the Word of the Lord brings us back yet again to the image of God’s people being conduits through whom the Living Water can flow.

Amos 5 is a chapter filled with God’s rebuke. His people have turned in on themselves. They are grabbing and grasping, seeking to enrich themselves and to keep all of God’s undeserved blessings to themselves. In their greed, they grab that which belongs to the weak, vulnerable and poor in their midst. They deny justice to the widows and take advantage of others at every turn. Yet, tragically, they continue to attend their religious festivals and to offer God loud songs of praise and beautiful musical worship. Like the hypocrites whom Jesus will later denounce as “whitewashed tombs”, and the unloving Christians whom Paul will later denounce as “clanging gongs”, they present a mask of holiness and religious fervour, but their lives belie that. They are unjust, unloving and thoroughly corrupt.

To return to our water image – these people have blocked up the overflow pipe of their lives in a vain attempt to keep all God’s goodness and generosity to themselves. But their well has begun to stink. God is displeased and disgusted by who and what they have become, and He announces judgment on them.

The only glimmer of hope is God’s call to repentance. His wrath will turn away from them if only they will put away their hypocrisy and their noisy, showy songs of praise and will turn instead to unblocking the overflow pipe and allowing justice and righteousness to flow from their lives. This will be their repentance. And this will be their true act of worship!

Heavenly Father, God of Justice, please forgive me for the times I have blocked the overflow of Your Abundant-Life-Giving Spirit, and have sought to keep all of You blessings to myself. Please give me the grace to open up the gates of my heart and life to allow Your blessing, generosity, kindness and justice to flow from me to all around me. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.