Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria, the notable men of the first of the nations, to whom the house of Israel comes! …O you who put far away the day of disaster and bring near the seat of violence. Woe to those who lie on beds of ivory and stretch themselves out on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock and calves from the midst of the stall, who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp and like David invent for themselves instruments of music, who drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph!

Amos 6:1-6

I was sitting in a Sunday school class this pass Sunday when they started their lesson on this passage. The lesson was on social justice this passage was discussed in many different ways. I was impacted by these words and wrote them down with the idea that I would write about them now. So that’s what I’m doing.

As I sit here this morning getting ready to start this ridiculously long day, I think about just how much time I spend ‘stretched out on the couch’. So much time gets spent with us trying to relax or doing the things that we want to do. I also think about those of us who spend time trying to emulate people that we see on TV and wanting to have what they have. We would never say it, but when we obsess about all these things and toys and cars and such, we are making them our idols; our God. I say we because I am guilty of this as well. I have been obsessing about some music software and it has clouded my thinking as far as the rest of the world goes. I have cared so much about this and other things including this current holiday that I have ‘put far away the day of disaster’. I haven’t spent much time caring about what’s going on in the world. It’s times like these that when I need a new God. That doesn’t mean that the God of this universe, the Savior of the world needs replacing. It means that I have replaced that God with all of the earthly things that I obsess about. I need to turn my focus back to who God is and what He has done.

I watched this happen to me this past week. Because I haven’t led worship for a church in quite awhile, I hadn’t focused much on reading or doing any of the things that I normally do to keep my mind sharp. It took me a LOT longer than it normally does to put together a worship set because I was so out of ‘practice’. I have had to do my share of ‘Encountering the Savior’ lately.

The question…is there anything out there that has taken the place of God in your own life? Is it money or the pursuit of it? Is it trying to find a better job? Is it trying to find the perfect guy or girl? Will any of these things better your life in a way that God can not?