Deitrich Devotionals

I’m not a professional prophet, and I was never trained to be one.

These are the words of Amos in Amos 7:14 (translated into English… the exact Hebrew text is more along the lines of “I’m not a prophet and neither is my dad”). Amos goes on to tell the priest he is talking to that he is just a shepherd and sycamore-pruner, who got called to give the word of God to people in a foreign country, Israel (Amos is from Judah). What a picture. A prophet of God humbly saying he’s not a prophet, had no training to be one, didn’t grow up around prophecy, but he’s just a simple guy with a message from God that he needs to share. This should be an encouragement to everyone, that despite what career we have or will have, we can still have a message from God to share, even if it is a message to people far from us that need to hear what God has to say.

Plumb lines and famines

Amos has a message for many nations about God’s righteous wrath regarding their sins, and the message to Israel is especially prominent throughout the little book tucked between Joel and Obadiah. One such message was given to Amos through a vision about a plumb line. A plumb line hangs down to show exactly where straight upright is, because gravity pulls the plumb bob straight down. Amos 7:8 reads: “And the Lord said to me, ‘Amos, what do you see?’ I answered, ‘A plumb line.’ And the Lord replied, ‘I will test my people with this plumb line. I will no longer ignore all their sins.’ ”

If you jump over to Amos 8, you can see how severe the punishment was for not holding to the upright standard God charged the Israelites to keep. ” ‘The time is surely coming,’ says the Sovereign Lord, ‘when I will send a famine of bread or water but of hearing the words of the Lord. People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from border to border searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it. Beautiful girls and strong men will grow faint in that day, thirsting for the Lord’s word.’ ” (Amos 8:11-13). We have assurance of forgiveness and salvation, but at the same time, this is the picture of our world, personally and on a grand scale. The consequence of sin is a famine of God’s word, and so people will search but not find it. Our constant challenge is to seek forgiveness so that we may not enter into famine of God’s word, but to have our hunger and thirst satisfied. Personally, the more I read of God’s word, the more I want of it, but the words will fall on deaf ears and blind eyes if I am not actively repentant, because sin separates us so much from God, his favor, and his word.

While I wander through your basement

Amos 9:6 says, “The Lord’s home reaches up to the heavens, while its foundation is on the earth. He draws up water from the oceans and pours it down as rain on the land. The Lord is his name!”

Have you ever considered that the majesty of heaven has its foundation on the earth? We are, in a sense, in the basement of the kingdom. If you’ve ever been to the house of someone important, you know how things around you get treated a little bit more delicately, and how behavior seems to just straighten up. When I read this verse, it made me stop and think how this world is completely God’s, and how we should treat the Lord’s home right while we are here on the foundation and waiting to ascend Jacob’s ladder into the main floors, especially since we have not the riches nor the authority to follow through with “you break it, you buy it” if we abuse the place we have been given stewardship over.

Is this door open? Is your door open?

There are some men that live near me in the dorms that are fervently seeking to know a specific part of God’s will in their lives. There is an opportunity that they feel possibly called to, but there is a lot of opposition and the situation requires a lot of discernment. Today the reading from Revelation really got me thinking about opportunities that God gives us. Revelation 3:7 says about the Lord: “What he opens, no one can close; and what he closes, no one can open.” When God gives us an opportunity, a open door to walk through, that door cannot be closed by the circumstances or people around us, because it is God who holds the door open for us. No one can close it. Keep this in mind as you personally seek God’s will, that He can and will work through you to his glory whether or not the world around you likes it, and that door to a transformed life is yours to walk through.

Speaking of doors, this chapter of Revelation also includes the famous “Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal as friends.” (Revelation 3:20). Listen and be open to God’s word, so that you may share in his sustenance and his friendship.

And you don’t realize that you are…

“You say, ‘I am rich. I have everything I want. I don’t need a thing!’ And you don’t realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. So I advise you to buy gold from me — gold that has been purified by fire. Then you will be rich. Also buy white garments from me so you will not be shamed by your nakedness, and ointment for your eyes so you will be able to see.” – Revelation 3:17-18.

How often have you just been satisfied in life? Hopefully a few times. Those times where you really don’t need anything else in this world because you’ve got what you need.

Or do you?

God’s idea of your possessions is not worldly things, and he doesn’t want you to be satisfied if this is all you have. Instead he wants you to take on his riches, his robes, and to use his ointment. I know I get trapped into the mindset of thinking I have what I need, but if my riches are not that of the Lord’s, if my dirty, ugly, sinful self is not covered by his white garments of righteousness, and if my eyes are blind to what God would see and have me see, I am still strongly in need of what God provides. The things of earth shall all pass away, but his riches, his covering, and his eyes are eternal, no warranty needed. Take the time to reflect on if your needs truly are satisfied, or if you are still spiritually poor, blind, and naked.

O Israel, put your hope in the Lord — now and always, (Psalm 131:3)

-Zachariah