Today many in our nation are pausing to observe Martin Luther King, Jr. day. Dr. King’s most often quoted scripture verse was from Amos 5:24, “let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” I’d like to consider the passage from which this verse is found.
Amos 5:21 – I hate, I despise your religious festivals;
your assemblies are a stench to me.
22 Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.
23 Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
24 But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!
If we believe, and we should, that as a prophet Amos was speaking for God, consider the weight of these words. The people were being told that their worship was offensive to God. They were being told that their songs of praise were nothing but noise to God! That is some powerful preaching! It is no wonder that Amos was run out of the Northern Kingdom by King Jeroboam II.
The message of Amos, however, is as timely today as it was centuries ago. Through Amos, God is telling us that what God wants from us is a life that is changed. God is not saying that our hymns and worship are bad, but they are offensive to God if our lives are not reflecting the God that we worship.
The people to whom Amos originally preached lived in a desert world. Waters flowed for only a brief time every year. A river and a never-failing stream are bodies of water that would flow year-round. When Amos said, let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream, God was telling the people that God doesn’t want a part time commitment to godliness. God wants our lives changed twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year.
As we pause this day to remember our country’s struggle with civil rights, let’s consider our own lives. Do our lives reflect the God that we worship? Let us strive this day and every day to let justice and righteousness never fail in our lives.
Posted by Ramón Torres
Some years ago on a trip out of town I visited a church. There were signs in the entry drives that read Welcome to Church Name. On the way out of the church parking lot on the back of the sign, it read, Welcome to the Mission Field, Go Out and Serve.
Go out and be LOVE.