SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/26/2015
10:51 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
Why Should we Seek the Lord?
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Amos 5:4-6
Message of the
verses: “4 For thus says the LORD to
the house of Israel, "Seek
Me that you may live. 5 “But do not resort to Bethel And do not come to
Gilgal, Nor cross over to Beersheba; For Gilgal will certainly go into
captivity And Bethel will come to trouble. 6 “Seek the LORD that you may live, Or He will break
forth like a fire, O house of Joseph, And it will consume with none to quench
it for Bethel.”
We are looking at the second portion of the second main
point which is called “Seek the Lord.”
This is a rather long section and so it may take more than one SD to
complete it.
When we look at verse four we see the first of three
reasons why we should seek the Lord, and verse four says “Seek Me that you may
live,” and so the first reason is life.
There are different Scriptures that teach us that it is because of God’s
love toward us that He will discipline us from time to time and if we do not
repent of our wrong doing God may take our life. In my Sunday School lesson for this week we
are looking at chapter five of the book of Acts and in the first part of that
chapter we see that the Lord has put to death a married couple who lied about
some property that they had sold in order to give the money to the Apostles to
help the poor. They were not put to
death for doing something good, but for lying about the good deed they were
doing. In the eleventh chapter of 1 Corinthians
Paul writes that some of the people in Corinth who were taking part in the Lord’s
Supper died because they did not confess their sins to the Lord and repent
before partaking of the elements of the Lord’s Supper. Hebrews 12:9 SAYS “Furthermore, we had
earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much
rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?” Of course the answer to this question is yes.
We will look at verse five for the second reason why we
should seek the Lord and it tells us that there is no other way to experience
spiritual blessing. The people of Israel
were going to places to worship the Lord that they should not have gone to as
mentioned in verse five and when they went to these places they came home
further from the Lord than when they went.
Dr. Wiersbe quotes Emerson who said “a change in geography never
overcomes a flaw in character” and he was right in saying this.
Dr. Wiersbe writes “God doesn’t franchise His blessings
the way companies franchise their products to local dealers. You can’t go to Bethel and Gilgal or to
Beersheba and go home with a blessing in your baggage. Unless we personally meet the Lord, deal with
our inner spiritual life, and seek His face, our hearts will never be
transformed.”
The places that Amos described in this passage would all
soon be destroyed and would become nothing.
In our study of Revelation chapter three we saw a promise that our Lord
gave to the church at Ephesus stating that if they continued to leave their
first love that He would destroy the church and if you go there today you will
find only ruins.
The third reason Amos gives to his readers to seek the
Lord is because judgment is coming, and this can be seen in verse six. Amos tells his readers that God will send
fire and in Hebrews 12:29 we read “For our God is a consuming fire.” Let us also look at Deuteronomy 4:24 “"For
the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.’”
Dr. Wiersbe writes “Fear of judgment may not be the
highest motive for obeying God, but the Lord will accept it. Animals and little children understand
rewards and punishments, but we hope that the children will eventually mature
and develop higher motives for obedience than receiving some candy or escaping
a spanking. God’s people, Israel, never
achieved that higher level of obedience, the kind of obedience that comes from
a heart that loves God.”
Israel did not repent and seek the Lord and therefore
were destroyed.
We did make it through this entire sub-point today.
9/26/2015 11:18 PM
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