“I know all the things you do, and that you have a reputation for being alive — but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what little remains, for even what is left is almost dead. I find that your actions do not meet the requirements of my God. Go back to what you heard and believed at first; hold to it firmly. Repent and turn to me again. If you don’t wake up, I will come to you suddenly, as unexpected as a thief.” – Revelation 3:1-3
Have you ever felt spiritually dead? I regularly feel disconnected from God. I suppose with the human sin nature, being disconnected from God would be a common thing, but if you’ve had times where you’ve just been on fire for God, on a mountaintop in your faith walk, you know that when it’s not that way, your faith just feels deadened. And perhaps it is.
Above are the words of Christ to the church in Sardis in the third chapter of John’s Revelation, but the message still rings true to believers today. We’re part of the Church, which has or should have a reputation for being alive. But are we dead in our faith? Today, Amos takes us through a time when the Israelites were in a rut in their faith, because of their abundance of sin and idol worship. Read on:
Amos 4:5 says, ” ‘Present your bread made with yeast as an offering of thanksgiving. Then give your extra voluntary offerings so you can brag about it everywhere! This is the kind of thing you Israelites love to do,’ says the Sovereign Lord.” Keep in mind that I will regularly use the Old Testament facts as New Testament metaphors, because the Church is God’s chosen people in the New Covenant. This is the kind of thing you, the Church, loves to do. Think about that. When we bring offerings of thanksgiving to God, if we even do bring offerings of thanksgiving at all, are we blameless in his sight and making our offering for the right reasons? Or is there yeast in our bread, is there blemish and sin in our offering? I don’t think I can say that I’ve ever thought, “I want to thank God right now, but, wait, I sinned today so I have to get that right first.” And then, extra offerings to brag about. The first offering was already defiled by our sin, our yeast, but now we the Church try to pack our heavenly treasure chests with extra offerings? Look over at Mark 12:41-44 or the same story in Luke 21:1-4. God isn’t concerned about quantity of offering if it is not done with the right attitude. The rich put a lot in the collection box because they could spare a lot for the temple and still have enough to live lavishly. The Sunday school stories even made it sound like the rich were having contests to see who could give the most to the church. The widow? She gave all the money she had. Nothing left. Not even enough for an extra offering to brag about. Just doing what was right for God and letting him handle the rest. Even when thanking God, keep in mind how unpleasing defiled offerings are, and how we should eliminate the yeast in our lives by appealing to God’s mercy and forgiveness before bringing corrupted thanks to him. For me, this is hard. I thank God for my food at meals, almost automatically. I don’t think about all the sins I’ve committed since the last meal and how that’s stopping me from being truly thankful. I challenge us all to make sure we are giving the right offerings to God, not the most offerings to God.
“I hate all your show and pretense — the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies. I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings. I won’t even accept your choice peace offerings. Away with your noisy hymns of praise! I will not listen to the music of your harps. Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, an endless river of righteous living.” – Amos 5:21-24
Wow. Think about how righteously angry God was about his chosen people abandoning him for idols. He didn’t accept their offerings, and told them to stop singing songs (even describing them as noise rather than music). Instead he only wanted just and righteous living. Take a second to imagine this today, if God were to say this to a church: Stop passing the collection plates, stop singing these five minutes songs about how great I am, and instead go and live like My greatness means something to you. I can easily imagine this completely upsetting the church and flipping their worship service upside-down. But, really, what is worship without the heart of worship? If the heart worships idols can the mouth worship God? God knows how alive you can be, how alive I can be, so when we are not alive in worship, he knows that we are being dead to him.
“Now this is what the Lord says to the family of Israel: Come back to me and live!” – Amos 5:4
“Lord, if you kept a record of our sins, who, O Lord, could ever survive? But you offer forgiveness, that we might learn to fear you…. O Israel, hope in the Lord; for with the Lord there is unfailing love. His redemption overflows. He himself will redeem Israel from every kind of sin.” – Psalm 130:3-4,7-8.
Keep in mind that God offers forgiveness in his unfailing love and redemption, so that we may be free from the shackles of sin and worship and thank our God purely and righteously, unencumbered by the sin that blocks us from truly being alive in Christ and alive in worship.
Do what is good and run from evil so that you may live! Then the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies will be your helper, just as you have claimed, (Amos 5:14)
-Zachariah