e174 Your Vertical Status with Our Sovereign God (a spiritual plumb line to live by)

This is Faith to Witness 99, motivating us to hear God and share the Shepherd.  

Season 3 Episode 174 Your Vertical Status with Our Sovereign God (a spiritual plumb line to live by)

Here’s the gist, human. Amos had a harsh message about God’s sovereignty for the Israelites in the Northern Kingdom. For us, while we are focusing on his sovereignty we can pray for hearts that see him. For us it is waking up in a mindset of preparation, in fact, asking God to prepare your mind to meet him in that day. Because he will show up. Amos tells us that our God will reveal his thoughts. 

Not unlike God turning from the wind gust he just sent across the Rockies to tell me something I need to know and obey. When God guides you through the Holy Spirit, imagine all the ways he is simultaneously sustaining and directing others and his creation.

Because he is sovereign. This tells me there is only one direction to look. Up. Your vertical status with God has everything to do with your horizontal status in your earthly life. Mine too.

Join us. E174. 

Seems like time to remind us why we turn to this time together. At least for me. People are surprised that I am approaching 200 episodes. I am not, but it is because I have come to depend on God for all of it. His righteousness. It is intentional that I define this podcast as a witness, that when we seek the nature of God, we will bear testimony to what we find. It makes testifying about our life with God something that transpires naturally. We have all been called to bear testimony. It becomes an organic way of spiritual life, to share his presence. So I guess it makes perfect spiritual sense that as the episode library grows I see surges that tell me someone is seeking a deeper connection with God. 

It isn’t up to me who lands here. God brought someone to his word. And it starts with me, now living in rural USA—often feeling the pangs of city-girl in isolation—responding to God’s story in my life. His sovereignty illuminates my free will for his glory. 

I am easily reminded of the people in his story who were called to so much adversity and persecution. Like Amos, a shepherd and fruit picker, called to take a harsh message to the Northern Kingdom. The minor prophet, Amos was a shepherd in around 750 B.C. about two years before the earthquake. Uzziah was King of Judah, Jeroboam (son of Jehoash) was king of Israel. It was a time of material prosperity for the Jewish nation and surrounding nations. By this I mean God’s chosen people were making a thousand daily choices to live without him. Choices to turn to earthly gain, the human gain of things. 

Amos starts in the right place, the only place to address it. 

A Sovereign God Over the Human Gain of Things

Amos starts with God’s sovereignty over the human gain of things.

Amos 2:13-16

13 “Now then, I will crush you

as a cart crushes when loaded with grain.

14 The swift will not escape,

the strong will not muster their strength,

and the warrior will not save his life.

15 The archer will not stand his ground,

the fleet-footed soldier will not get away,

and the horseman will not save his life.

16 Even the bravest warriors

will flee naked on that day,”

declares the Lord.

Whatever strength mankind has, God rules. He crushes. The swift will not escape, the strong will not muster strength, the warrior will not save his life, the archer will not stand his ground, the fleet-footed will not get away, the horseman will not save his life.

In the Old Testament the Israelites relied on hearing from God through prophets. 

Amos 3:7

7 Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing

    without revealing his plan

    to his servants the prophets.

When I try to draw from the strengths God created on my own, without his power and spiritual anointment (purpose), he will stop. me. cold. By this, stop me from achieving his purpose. So then, what’s the point if not for God’s purpose as my Maker?

So consider this question: how sovereign is my God in my life? What are examples of this? Here are a few of my impromptu answers in this quick moment:

1. We did not lose power in last night’s storm. 

2. God will take care of my beloved dog, who is sick.

3. I wait for a response from someone who usually responds.

4. God is sovereign over my purpose, today.

5. God rules over my physical therapy to sustain his purpose through my aging body.

God fills our lives with his sovereignty. If we look for how he is sovereign in our lives we will find him. Amos names a “sovereign God” nineteen+ times by my quick count. If we show some spiritual discipline, we will see his sovereignty 24/7 through Jesus and the Holy Spirit. 

Prepare to Meet Your God

In chapter four, Amos tells the Jewish nation of northern Israel to “prepare to meet your God.”

Amos 4:12-13

12 “Therefore this is what I will do to you, Israel,

    and because I will do this to you, Israel,

    prepare to meet your God.”

13 He who forms the mountains,

    who creates the wind,

    and who reveals his thoughts to mankind,

who turns dawn to darkness,

    and treads on the heights of the earth—

    the Lord God Almighty is his name.

I have always heard this phrase in the context of telling someone who is about to die, to come to repentance. This is the first time I see it in its original context: words God gave a prophet to tell Israel. It is about seeing what God will do, the power he has, and how Israel will be reduced, humbled. 

For us, while we are focusing on his sovereignty we can pray for hearts that see him. For us it is waking up in a mindset of preparation, in fact, ask God to prepare your mind to meet him in that day. Because he will show up. Amos tells us that our God will reveal his thoughts. Not unlike God turning from the wind gust he just sent across the Rockies to tell me something I need to know and obey. When God guides you through the Holy Spirit, imagine all the ways he is simultaenously sustaining others and his creation.

Your Vertical Status with God is a Spiritual Plumb Line

This tells me there is only one direction to look. Up. Your vertical status with God has everything to do with your horizontal status in your earthly life. Mine too.

Amos 7:7-9

7 This is what he showed me: The Lord was standing by a wall that had been built true to plumb, with a plumb line in his hand. 8 And the Lord asked me, “What do you see, Amos?”

“A plumb line,” I replied.

Then the Lord said, “Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.

9 “The high places of Isaac will be destroyed

and the sanctuaries of Israel will be ruined;

with my sword I will rise against the house of Jeroboam.”

Ok, so simple research shows us that a plumb line consists of a string (which is the line) and a heavy weight known as a plumb bob. A plumb line ensures an exact vertical axis, ensuring stability and accuracy. When the weighted cord hangs freely, gravity causes the cord to form what is called a “true vertical” which is perpendicular to a level, horizontal surface. 

God tells Amos that he is going to measure their actions by his righteousness and justice. As he says, “I will spare them no longer.” God created gravity and he created human nature, and put our free will in the middle of it. While he gives us free will, we also bear the consequences of a world, a universe he created.

So, our God, our amazing Creator gives us an amazing visual of his divine righteousness and justice in relation to our actions in this earthly life. I think the plumb line is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, having lived a life in perfect alignment with his Heavenly Father. When I live within, abide in him, I have spiritual stability in God’s justice and righteousness. 

I think the plumb line is the way, the truth and the life. My earthly life will run horizontally level to it through my obedience to Christ. Which makes what God tells Amos a truth that is not hard to understand. 

Are You Experiencing a Spiritual Famine?

Famines are part of God’s arsenal for bringing people to his truth. But here, in chapter 8, God declares a spiritual famine.

Amos 8:11

11 “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord,

    “when I will send a famine through the land—

not a famine of food or a thirst for water,

    but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.

In the Old Testament times “hearing the words of the Lord” meant God communicating through prophets to the people in real time. They would have had only the Mosaic law on how to live, how to worship. And the messages coming from prophets living amongst them. 

For us, spiritual famine comes by our own doing. John 3:16 has already happened. We have a Savior who offers eternal life and a Holy Spirit to get us to his Father’s House. So we have to ask ourselves a very obvious question: when do we not hear the words of the Lord? When we are not reading his word, praying and listening, and serving. He directs our path when we make the spiritual commitment to seek him. 

I should say here that I know I am falling into spiritual famine long before I do anything about it. In fact, the enemy loves to use my initial falling away to motivate more falling. I doubt I have to explain that, right?

So, this lone shepherd and farmer named Amos, with a mighty spirit who lived a few miles south of Jerusalem, has given us a feast for thought: the power of God’s sovereignty, the value of a spiritual plumb line, and the downward spiraling of a spiritual famine. We are pathetically short-sighted about how to manage the dynamics of these elements in our earthly life, if it were not for the faithfulness of God.

Our faith is in response to his faithfulness. His faithfulness to his promise. 

Growing Toward Our Spiritual Restoration

Amos 9:8

8 “Surely the eyes of the Sovereign Lord

are on the sinful kingdom.

I will destroy it

from the face of the earth.

Yet I will not totally destroy

the descendants of Jacob,”

declares the Lord.

This is God’s covenant with his nation. And all his descendants. His children through Christ, his Son. If you are a believer, that’s you. That’s me. That’s us.

Amos 9:15

15 I will plant Israel in their own land,

    never again to be uprooted

    from the land I have given them,”

says the Lord your God.

God’s path makes sense. That we seek the glory of his sovereign nature in our days, that we visualize and nurture the plumb line from his throne to our earthly gain, that we cling close to his word for sustenance, that we understand and embrace the power of his promise.

Because we will never be uprooted from him. And we are growing toward being fully restored to how he created us from the beginning.

Today’s motivation comes from God’s story with Amos and his chosen people. 

Share how God’s path makes sense in your life with someone, human. 

Every human needs the Shepherd.