BACKGROUND
The gist of Amos 5 is that the nation of Israel would be judged by God for its legal injustice and religious hypocrisy, but individual people could repent, seek Him, and live.
Even though Israel was at the pinnacle of prosperity under Jeroboam II, Amos speaks a sad lament/dirge (song of grief) over them.
The key verse in this chapter is found in 5:14:
“Seek good, not evil, that you may live."
Amos 5 also talks about the day of the Lord, but I will talk about that tomorrow. I do not want to take away from today's application because I think it is ultra-important to ponder!
APPLICATION
Are you seeking good?
One of the charges against Israel was that they were not helping the poor and needy (5:12). What are you doing to help those in need? Could you volunteer to work with a community group that fights poverty in your area?
A super program in the Corvallis is the Southside Youth Outreach
Our family has been blessed to help out with their Tuesday Club by cooking and serving the meal for kids! It is a “blessed blast.” This is a picture of my husband and Paul, my youngest, flipping sandwiches.There are also opportunities to help with tutoring kids at the Southside Youth Outreach.
2023 Update: We did this until 2018 when they changed the dinner outreach and no longer needed volunteers. Check their page for the latest volunteer needs.
Often, as my kids got older and they were working, they would still try to come and volunteer. My oldest would even commute from out of town to come. That is how much they loved doing this with our family. When we our kids could not come, we recruited our friends and their children. I think this is a picture of our last time volunteering:
Every May, there is a repacking party at Linn-Benton Food Share for the Postal Carriers Food Drive. This is a national program, and if you are not in my area, I am sure there is a way you can help in your own area: http://www.nalc.org/commun/foodrive/. See pictures HERE.
Also, there was a monthly Open House Repack on the last Thursday of every month from 6-8 pm at the Linn Benton Food Share Warehouse in Tangent, but that might not happen anymore since COVID. You can check their webpage for volunteer opportunities From their Facebook page several years ago:
It is amazing what a group of like-minded people can accomplish in two hours. Over 2,000 pounds of bulk flour was repacked into family-size portions in less than two hours.
Another thing we did every Christmas was helping them with their annual donation appeal mailer. We did it for about 10 years, and it was always fun and festive, but they outsourced the job to a mailing company.
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| Christmas 2007 - I would always bring Christmas music, and they provided the pizza and treats! |
If you are not in this area, why not take some time to look for something you might be able to do for those in need!
PRAYER
Lord, help us always to seek God and not evil all the days of our life. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
3 comments:
This is what jumped out at me while reading Amos 5. Three different times, God tells us how we can choose life and how we "may live". The wording may be different, but I think each verse is really saying the same thing. We know that the Lord God is good.
Verse 4b says, "Seek Me that you may live."
Verse 6a "Seek the LORD that you may live," and Verse 14a "Seek good and not evil, that you may live;"
Dorothy
Matthew 5:16
That's the thought that struck me in chapter 5, too. Seek the Lord!
What sweet memories of our volunteer days. All of them naturally dried up, with the last one being our delivery of library books to shut-ins. We all became shut in in 2020, and our library delivered our books. As a result, they hired drivers to deliver to whoever wanted delivery (not just shut-ins). So, we were out of another volunteer job!
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