June 28th, 20

JUNE 28,  A MIGHTY FLOOD OF JUSTICE

Today’s readings are Amos 4-6, Psalm 86-87, and Titus 1.  We are reading from the New Living Translation.

W oes he want to see big religious festivals? Big gatherings of religious people? Big houses? Big vineyards? A big life?  Is this what he wants to see among his people.  Apparently not.  Amos tells us that God wants to see something entirely different.  He want to see a heart transformed from the inside out.  A heart that loves justice and mercy, having been set free from oppression, forgiven, and experiencing God’s love. God, speaking through Amos, says:

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 notice all 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)

What does God want to see?  He wants to see a mighty flood of justice and an endless river of righteous living.    Where does this river and flood come from?  There is only one source.  It’s not our own piety. It doesn’t come from the arrogant headwaters of the self.  The waters God is looking for come from an entirely different source.  They come from Christ Jesus, the source of all living water, and the source of life itself.  In Jn 7:38 Jesus says:

Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart’.

That mighty flood – that torrent of righteousness, comes from Him.  And we must come to Him if we want to live that kind of life, that God desires to see.

Is anyone thirsty? Come and drink—  even if you have no money!  Come, take your choice of wine or milk— it’s all free!(Isaiah 55:1)

We must come to the waters first.  It’s there that we are transformed from the inside out, by the Spirit of Christ himself, living and abiding in us.  Then his living water can be poured out into this world, through us.  It’s then that He will he see what he really wants to see – a mighty flood of justice and a torrent of righteous living.   He will see people who have been set free, setting other people free, with the love and power of Christ in them.

God says, Come back to me and live! (Amos 5:4 NLT) Come to the water, his living water, so that it might flow from through you and and from you.  We live in a dry, thirsty, weary land.  Drink deep from his well and you’ll be amazed at what will happen.  Life and justice will happen.

You are loved!