Maybe we should ask the question, why is doing things God’s way best for us? It has to do with sin. The word sin is used around 400 times in the Bible. That is not counting all the words that relate to sin. We are going to look at the first chapter of Amos today. Let’s consider the message of this prophecy and how it relates to us.
This is what the Lord says: “The people. . . have sinned again and again, and I will not let them go unpunished!” Amos 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 13
Isn’t it amazing how people will go out of their way to criticize others? In many cases, they don’t really know the person they are criticizing. A person’s reputation can be scarred for life because of comments said about them. Especially when done through the media. These comments can be unfair with their unsubstantiated accusations.
People are also quick to do the same thing with God. Because ungodly people don’t understand him, God is criticized and gets the blame for many things. He even gets the blame for natural disasters as they are labeled “acts of God”.
Their criticism comes because they don’t know him or his character. They only know about him. Their knowledge is filtered through the ignorance of their finite minds. This brings us back to the issue of sin.
God’s Way, not the World’s Way
This is a subject that the world would rather not talk about. The fact is, for years many things that used to be sin have been declassified to, “what’s wrong with that?” God however has not changed His opinion on the matter. Sin is sin. It always has been and it always will be.
How many times did God warn people about sin? How many times did he say, stay away from sin and all will be well? He says if you sin you will suffer the consequences.
In today’s chapter, God gave Amos messages to deliver to 5 people groups. Each message was the same. You have sinned again and again, and I will not let them go unpunished! The consequences for their sins were similar.
Listen to what the Lord included in each punishment. I will send down fire. Sometimes when the word fire is used, it means “purification.” But that’s not the meaning in this chapter. In each of these cases, sins were committed and part of the punishment was fire. The fires resulted in destruction.
So, why is doing things God’s way best for us? Because there is only one thing that stands between us and God. That one thing is sin! There is forgiveness for sin. When we come to Him, God through Jesus will and does forgive us.
God’s Way is Best
In Amos, it says they sinned again and again. When we continually sin again and again we will come to the place where we will stop going to the Lord for forgiveness. Those who die in their sin will not experience a fire of destruction. They will experience a fire of torment for all eternity.
Lord, when we mess up, you are always willing to forgive us again and again. May we never compromise sin, calling it not sin. But help us to always come to you for forgiveness.
Read the entire chapter of Amos 1 here.
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on Christian Perspectives
Featured Image by Nick Gavrilov on Unsplash
