1 Hear this word—a funeral song—that I am lifting up against you, house of Israel:
2 Fallen, no more to rise,
is virgin Israel,
deserted on her land,
with no one to raise her up.
3 The Lord God proclaims:
The city that marched out one thousand people
will have one hundred left,
and the city that marched out one hundred will have ten left in the house of Israel.
4 The Lord proclaims to the house of Israel:
Seek me and live.
5 But don’t seek Bethel,
don’t enter into Gilgal,
or cross over to Beer-sheba;
for Gilgal will go into exile,
and Bethel will come to nothing.
6 Seek the Lord and live,
or else God might rush like a fire against the house of Joseph.
The fire will burn up Bethel, with no one to put it out.
7 Doom to you who turn justice into poison,
and throw righteousness to the ground!
8 The one who made the Pleiades and Orion,
and turns deep darkness into the morning,
and darkens the day into night;
who summons the waters of the sea,
and pours them out on the surface of the earth—
this one’s name is the Lord—
9 who causes destruction to flash out against the strong,
so that destruction comes upon the fortress.
Reflection
In reading Amos 5:1-9, we are told it’s a song of lament, words of encouragement and words of doom. A lot to take in, so let’s just read verses 4-6 and get the words of encouragement. It reads:
The Lord proclaims to the house of Israel:
Seek me and live. But don’t seek Bethel, don’t enter into Gilgal, or cross over to Beer-sheba; for Gilgal will go into exile, and Bethel will come to nothing. Seek the Lord and live, or else God might rush like a fire against the house of Joseph. The fire will burn up Bethel, with no one to put it out.
First off, encouragement isn’t even used in these passages. And secondly, this doesn’t sound very encouraging to me. But encouragement is a must for Christians. One website said it is used almost 80 times.
Why is encouragement so important? We live in a broken world. We need to be encouraged and to encourage. It’s that simple, especially now with all the political unrest. So much lack of encouragement.
Let us decide to encourage someone each day. Let there be encouragement each day and let it begin with me.
by Rick Reed
For Pondering and Prayer
Let us all decide to encourage someone each day, or maybe two. We need to encourage and, be encouraged.
Prayer: Lord, help me to be an instrument of encouragement. And help us to ask you to encourage us. Amen.
