2 “What do you see, Amos?” he asked.
“A basket of ripe fruit,” I answered.
Then the Lord said to me, “The time is ripe for my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.
I have to be honest, I struggle to get the message God wants me to hear from this chapter. I do feel a theme related to the US society--we may be a basket of ripe fruit. I wonder if people would feel this way at any time in history, kind of the 'back in my day people worked hard...blah blah blah' or is there something truly ripe in the US. It feels like the latter, at least in some point in our history it was okay to include God in our culture now he seems more than just missing but actually actively blocked out by many.
knut
I like the analogy that God uses, being the bowl of fruit. When its ripe, one of two things has to happen. It either gets "used" and becomes something really positive......or it goes bad. I think what God is saying is that the time is now, to decide which way you people are going to go. Are you going to allow yourselves to be used by God, or to be self oriented, and therefore go bad. I get what you're saying when you say this could probably apply to any time in history. I think the key isn't how we are now different or worse or better. To me the key is, are we focussed on God and his mission? Or are we focussed on ourselves and our mission? When I read thru the chapter the first time.....the verse that stuck out to me is the one talking about the Sabbath, and how the people were anxious for it to be over so they could go back to their business, and cheating each other at the business. God is saying........don't separate the way you act/think on the Sabbath from the way you function every other day of the week.
ReplyDeleteBottom line for me, is to continue to bring God into every part of my day, every decision I make, every person I meet looking at them thru his eyes.
tp
good take
ReplyDelete