For Real

"I hate all your show and pretense--the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies. I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings. I won't even notice all your choice peace offerings. Away with your noisy hymns of praise! I will not listen to the music of your harps. Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, an endless river of righteous living." -Amos 5:21-24

Israel was in big trouble. God had proclaimed through Amos, "The people of Israel have sinned again and again, and I will not let them go unpunished!" (Amos 2:6) After this announcement, God lists all the ways in which his chosen people had sinned, turning their backs on Him. And all their wrongs really boil down to this:

The people were fake.

They worshipped God on the Sabbath, and celebrated Him on festive occasions, making sure to follow the rituals closely. But when God wasn't "necessary," when nobody was watching, when life was comfortable, they did not worship him. Their actions the next day contradicted their praises on the Sabbath.

And God was not pleased. It was like they did not know Him! "From among all the families on the earth, I have been intimate with you alone. That is why I must punish you for all your sins." (Amos 3:2) God revealed Himself again and again to the Israelites, but despite His show of power and His enduring love, they became absorbed with themselves; they became hypocrites.

Their worship became empty, their prayers, meaningless, because in their hearts, they did not truly know God. And to God, empty praises are noisy--He doesn't want to hear them at all! The worship of a hypocrite was meaningless. He did not want to see His people, with whom He had entered into a covenant, living in a way that did not praise Him, but saying with their lips, "He is LORD!" for all to hear.

As Christians, our testimony to the world is extremely poor if what we say on Sunday is different than what we do on Monday. Our worship becomes meaningless to God when our actions directly defy what we say we believe in. When we claim to be followers of Christ, we're claiming the Bible as our living guide, and taking its contents to heart. We're living out the will of Jesus to show the world who He is. Our actions should be for real--living out a real relationship with God, with words that give proof to that.

"Do what is good and run from evil so that you may live! Then the LORD God of Heaven's Armies will be your helper, just as you have claimed." (Amos 5:14)

Live according to God's words so that you may claim them as the reason for your life.