God Wants Our Heart

Delayed post. I’m in Greece with a group of people from my church. Today we travel from Athens to Corinth. We will be taking in the sights of Pauls travels around the Mediterranean for the next few days. I will post as possible, but that’s where I’m at. As I think about it, I’m traveling the world of the New Testament while writing about Amos the prophet who lived in the sliver of land in the Old Testament. God’s vision for the people of Israel, fulfilled in Christ and carried forward by Paul was bigger than anyone in Amos’ day even dreamed. 

Amos 5:18-20 (ESV) Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness, and not light, 19 as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him. 20 Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it? 

The people of Israel longed for the day of the Lord. But they were unaware that they themselves were not ready for it. As with other prophets of the Old Testament, Amos decries the empty practices and vain adherence to dogmas resident in the people of Israel. They believed, but they did not live it out. They practiced their religion, but it was only for their own appearance before others. 

God speaks with intensity about those practices in the next passage:

Amos 5:21-23 (ESV) “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. 22 Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. 23 Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen.

There was a false assumption in Amos’ day that I can appreciate being in Athens this morning. The Acropolis, a center for religious idolatry and civic life. It’s strategically built on the top of a rocky crag in the middle of the city. We were walking around it last night and while on foot the edifice seems impregnable. That is how Israel must have felt about their center of worship atop mount Samaria. 

Today we drive fast cars and fly high soaring planes above the ground. In many ways, our modern technological advancements have nullified the impressive stature of these structures. But to the ancient, these structures were their modern and impressive structures. 

What is in our lives that makes us feel invincible? What aspect of modern life cause a false sense of security within our hearts and lead us to empty religion and vain spiritual practice? The systems of visual impressive church structures? The amount of money in our bank accounts? All that we think is secure actually isn’t. And a good prophet tells us so. Just as Amos does here in dramatic intense language. 

Today we visit ruins to mark the moments where men felt they had arrived at the top of the world (symbolically and to them, literally). Yet it is today a tourist attraction. Let us consider how to build our hearts in faith for everlasting things instead of the vanity of notoriety or power. 

God wants our heart, not our resume.