{"id":8517,"date":"2020-04-01T20:00:42","date_gmt":"2020-04-02T03:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?p=8517"},"modified":"2020-03-29T17:39:55","modified_gmt":"2020-03-30T00:39:55","slug":"amos4_1-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/amos4_1-13\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Box In Your Worship"},"content":{"rendered":"

\ufeff<\/span>

Amos 4:1-13\u00a0\u00a0Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Amos 4:1 (NIV)
\n1\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria, you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy and say to your husbands, “Bring us some drinks!”<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 1-3:\u00a0 While Israel was experiencing great economic prosperity during this time, there was a wide discrepancy between the rich and the poor in Israel.\u00a0 \u00a0Here Amos accuses the rich, upper class women, and indirectly their husbands, of oppressing the poor and taking advantage of the needy in order to satisfy their expensive tastes.\u00a0 Playing off the fact that Samaria, Israel\u2019s capital city, had a lot of lush fields and fattened cattle, Amos calls these women \u201ccows of Bashan\u201d (v1).\u00a0 This is followed by a promise from God that these upper class women would be cast out of their own city one day, like fish being taken away on hooks (v2-3).<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0\u00a0It angers God when the rich take advantage of the poor, or when those who have more materially show no concern for those who have less.\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0God has no issues with people having wealth, but He watches what we do with our wealth.\u00a0 Justice is a big theme in the book of Amos.<\/p>\n

Amos 4:4-5 (NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n4\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“Go to Bethel and sin; go to Gilgal and sin yet more. Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three years.
\n5\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Burn leavened bread as a thank offering and brag about your freewill offerings– boast about them, you Israelites, for this is what you love to do,” declares the Sovereign\u00a0LORD.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 4-5:\u00a0 The rich and comfortable in Israel would carry on sinful lifestyles while still bringing religious sacrifices regularly.\u00a0 Unremorseful and unrepentant, they would boast about how devout they were.\u00a0 Yet they completely missed the point of what worship is.<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0\u00a0The kind of worship God desires from us is not just a few songs on a\u00a0Sunday, a volunteer hour set aside to serve others, or a single money offering, while the rest of the week is ours to do whatever we want.<\/strong>\u00a0 God desires from us a lifestyle of worship, where we treat every day, every moment, and everything we do as an opportunity to worship God.\u00a0 Worship was always meant to be an all-day, every day activity.<\/p>\n

Amos 4:8 (NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n8\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0People staggered from town to town for water but did not get enough to drink,\u00a0yet you have not returned to me<\/strong>,” declares the\u00a0LORD.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 6-13:\u00a0 God allowed the people of Israel to experience all sorts of difficulties \u2013 hunger and famine (v6), drought (v7-8), plagues (v9-10), fires (v11) \u2013 all in hope that those difficulties would drive the people back to God.\u00a0 But over and over in these verses, God laments that \u201cyou have not returned to me\u201d.\u00a0 Since God could not get the people\u2019s attention through temporary trials, the consequence is that one day those people will be rejected completely (v12-13).<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0 One reason God allows trials in our lives is so that we would humbly realize that we are not God and that we need Him.\u00a0 So when you go through a painful time, let that painful time drive you to your knees.\u00a0\u00a0In your pain, don\u2019t run away from God; run to Him.<\/strong>\u00a0 In those tough times, thank God that at least this painful time led you back to Him.<\/p>\n

Heavenly Father, I pray that my worship of You would be less and less boxed in.\u00a0 May I not see worship as only the first or last few minutes of the day, the few songs I sing at church, or a single sacrifice that I make.\u00a0 More and more may I see worship as my lifestyle and treat each moment as a moment to worship You.\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\ufeff<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Amos 4:1 (NIV)\u00a0
\n1\u00a0\u00a0Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria, you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy and say to your husbands, “Bring us some drinks!”<\/p>\n

On verses 1-3:\u00a0 While Israel was experiencing great economic prosperity during this time, there was a wide discrepancy between the rich and the poor in Israel.\u00a0 \u00a0Here Amos accuses the rich, upper class women, and indirectly their husbands, of oppressing the poor and taking advantage of the needy in order to satisfy their expensive tastes.\u00a0 Playing off the fact that Samaria, Israel\u2019s capital city, had a lot of lush fields and fattened cattle, Amos calls these women \u201ccows of Bashan\u201d (v1).\u00a0 This is followed by a promise from God that these upper class women would be cast out of their own city one day, like fish being taken away on hooks (v2-3).<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0\u00a0It angers God when the rich take advantage of the poor, or when those who have more materially show no concern for those who have less.\u00a0\u00a0God has no issues with people having wealth, but He watches what we do with our wealth.\u00a0 Justice is a big theme in the book of Amos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8518,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8517"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8520,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8517\/revisions\/8520"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}