Daily Strength: Encouraging Devotional Thoughts

SUNDAY, 7 JULY 2024

TEXT: Amos 5:10-17

10. How you hate honest judges! How you despise people who tell the truth!

11. You trample the poor, stealing their grain through taxes and unfair rent. Therefore, though you build beautiful stone houses, you will never live in them. Though you plant lush vineyards, you will never drink wine from them.

12. For I know the vast number of your sins and the depth of your rebellions. You oppress good people by taking bribes and deprive the poor of justice in the courts.

13. So those who are smart keep their mouth shut, for it is an evil time.

14. Do, what is good and run from evil so that you may live! Then the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies will be your helper, just as you have claimed.

15. Hate evil and love what is good; turn your courts into true halls of justice. Perhaps even yet the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies will have mercy on the remnant of his people.

16. Therefore, this is what the Lord, the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies, says: “There will be crying in all the public squares and mourning in every street. Call for the farmers to weep with you, and summon professional mourners to wail.

17. There will be wailing in every vineyard, for I will destroy them all,” says the LORD.

(New Living Translation Holy Bible)

TOPIC: REPENT FROM YOUR EVIL DEEDS

The call to repentance is a continuous one, most especially because people seem to forget the warnings of the Lord and end up returning to the very things for which God had rebuked them.

The prophet Amos took his time to enumerate the sins of the people of Israel and informed them of the consequences. God was going to punish them for trampling upon the poor, oppressing the righteous through accepting bribes and the many other evil things they were doing.

Today, Christians must know that the God we serve never changes and He still calls on them to desist from doing anything that will dishonor His name and cause pains in the hearts of others.

This will grant them mercy as they continue to live.

QUESTION: What are the things you do which dishonor God and cause pains in the hearts of others?

PRAYER: Grant me the grace to say no to every form of evil and help me to live my life in a way that honours Your name and bring joy to humanity, in Jesus name. Amen.