You Only Have I Chosen (Amos 3:2)

 


Thursday, July 18, 2024


Psalms 41; 44:1-9

Amos 3

Galatians 6:11-18


You Only Have I Chosen (Amos 3:2)


Our Australian Constitution opens with these words: “Whereas the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, humbly relying on the blessings of Almighty God, have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth…” Rather exciting, don’t you think?


And so, with sword and trowel in hand, as the Christians of our generation tasked with living faithfully and with the duty of blessing the land in which God has placed us, we read the third chapter of Amos.


God had blessed the nation of Israel: them only had he chosen of all the families of the earth. Yet they had turned from God, and “therefore” - God’s special blessings that they had rejected – God was going to punish them. One particular crime pops up in this chapter, and it is fantastically dragon-y: “They do not know how to do right,” declares the Lord, “who hoard plunder and loot in their fortresses”.


We have sought the blessings of the Lord on our nation. And, without ignoring all the problems, I would say we have certainly received plenty of those blessings that we asked for. Yet here in this passage God reminds us of the nature of national blessings: they are not to be hoarded.


Not many of us feel rich, I would say. Not many of us feel like a dragon sitting on his pile of gold under a mountain. But hoarding is an attitude, too. Hoarding says: “all these blessings came not from God but from myself, and so I am fully within my rights to keep it to myself”. But God doesn’t bless us in that way. God’s blessings are to be passed on and shared around. The ultimate blessing, the salvation of the world in our saviour Jesus Christ, is certainly not be treated in that way. And neither are any of the abundant lesser blessings God lavishes on us, either.


What blessings are you holding onto a little too tightly? How might you live as a blessing to the place into which God has put you?


Almighty God, I humbly rely on your abundant blessings. Bless my spirit with the grace of my Lord Jesus Christ, and teach me to be free and generous.

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