“Woe to you who are complacent in Zion, and to you who feel secure on Mount Samaria, you notable men of the foremost nation, to whom the people of Israel come!” (Amos 6:1).
Like many of the Old Testament prophets, Amos had a hard but necessary message to preach to God’s people.
God’s charge to Amos was to preach a message of judgment against the Israelites for their sins of complacency, greed, and apathy toward caring for the poor and needy among them. It was meant to be a wake-up call, an urgent request to repent and turn from their evil ways and return to following the Lord and his commands. They weren’t living like God’s people.
Sadly, it was an important message that went largely unheeded, as we can see from Israel’s history. And God followed through on his pronouncement of judgment. Foreign invaders, first the Assyrians and then the Babylonians, came and carried some off, never to return to their homeland.
Eventually, God’s people repented, and God was able to reassure them through his prophets of his steadfast love and forgiveness. But not all of God’s people made it back to their homeland, nor did all of them heed God’s warning in time.
What’s the lesson to learn from Amos’ message for us today?
Complacency kills faith.
God’s people have always struggled with complacency. We’re no different. We don’t always live like the people God calls us to be.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I fall into the mindset that it is enough for me to go to church to feed my faith. That’s all my faith needs to grow. That’s all I need to do to be a Christian.
Don’t get me wrong, going to church is incredibly important for our lives of faith. But the Christian life isn’t lived for an hour or two once a week. It’s lived every second of every day until God calls us home.
When it comes to our time spent in God’s Word and in our relationship with God, we don’t want to adopt an attitude of complacency. That’s a dangerous trap to fall into. Again, complacency kills.
Relationships take work.
What happens if we stop putting in the effort? Those relationships don’t last. If we’re not feeding our faith through the means of grace, God’s Word and sacraments, we’re spiritually starving ourselves. If we’re not actively working on growing closer to our God through his Word, might that relationship be in danger of becoming unimportant in our eyes?
As God’s people through faith in our Savior Jesus, we want to adopt a mindset of intentionality when it comes to our lives of faith, our time spent in God’s Word, and growing closer to our God. Not because by doing those things we’ll be doing something to attain salvation for ourselves. Salvation has already been won for us by Jesus.
Rather, by doing those things, our lives will be inundated with the knowledge of everything our God has done, is doing, and promises to do for us. We’ll stand at the foot of the cross, overwhelmed by the forgiveness of sins won there for us by Jesus. We’ll sit at our Savior’s feet, listening to him in his Word so we might know how to live as God’s children in thanks to him for all he’s done for us.
Complacency kills. But as God’s people, we encourage, pray for, and point one another to our Savior and the victory he won for us, freeing us from the chains of sin, death, and hell.
Dear Christian, that’s what we get to do for one another every day. That’s how we live as God’s children.
Do we get credit for what we do as redeemed children of God? The Bible is clear—God gets all the credit. The sanctified lives we lead through faith in Christ are testimonials to the gracious love that God has shown us. Sanctification: Alive in Christ examines the contrast and dependency that exist in the crucial relationship between justification and sanctification, as taught in Scripture. See how God warns against following human consciences, rules, and regulations regarding living a “good life.”
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Alex Brown is the marketing and content copywriter at Northwestern Publishing House. He has his Master of Divinity degree from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary and enjoys reading, writing, and spending time in God’s creation.
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