Cash Craving

Amos 8:4 Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, 5 saying, “When will the new moon be over,
that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale,
that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great
and deal deceitfully with false balances, 6 that we may buy the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat?”

An ugly but honest confession from childhood: My favorite part of a church worship service was when it was over. I loved the run to Morrison's Cafeteria that followed the service and playing or fishing on a Sunday afternoon. I was a good boy and kept quiet through the service (most of the time), but the truth was that my mind and heart had seemingly more attractive longings to attend to after 12:00. I was present physically, but my desires were outside of the sanctuary and God. What an awful picture of religion.

The book of Amos is Not a great book to read if you are looking for an atta boy! The hard truths of Amos 8:4-6 above, are that the Jews had one big longing and it was not worshipping God. Look at what the text says: They could not wait for the new moon festival or the sabbath to get over with. Why? So they could get back to their love of making money and most of that was done by dishonest measure. In fact, they were going through the religious motions with an "I have to do this" attitude while all of the time their hearts and souls longed to get back to their lust for "stuff". Some of the most vivid and graphic descriptions of God's wrath and judgement surround this verdict on the people of Israel. Verses 9-10 describe a vivid misery who truly worship stuff in the place of God, no matter how religious their outer actions may seem. God promises to "turn your feasts into mourning and our songs into Lamentations" and it only gets worse from there.

So how do we apply this back into our lives in 2010? Pretty simple: Ask yourself if you long for God while you are worshipping, whether at church, home or at work. Do you have a lust for God and His Love? A tough and ugly truth may be the honest answer of this question: Do I simply do the "God thing" when I feel like I have to so that I will be "recharged" to get back to the "High Life"?

A longing for God and a thirst for His love are a luxury NOT a task......