“This is what the LORD says to Israel:
’Seek me and live;’”
Today’s Text: Amos 5:1-6 (Living Life Daily Devotional)
Can there be any principle for humanity that is more straightforward than this: Seek the LORD and live? Unbelievers with an unspeculative mind might think, “I’m already alive. I don’t need the LORD!” But for those of us who believe, we get it.
“For life is more than food …..”
— Luke 12:23a
Although, maybe the unspeculative unbelievers are on to something worth considering. Maybe life—at its very core—is exactly about living. There’s a “no duh” kind of thought.
And so, here’s what their “no duh” thinking points to, even though by accident: Death was never meant to be part of the human experience. Humans were never meant to die.
I remember saying that humans were never meant to die to a “Christian” who was from a liberal denomination, and he was astonished. He had even graduated from a “Christian” university, but in all his years of attending church services, he had never heard that before.
That is because the liberal denominations don’t actually believe in the literal, historical resurrection of Jesus Christ. In those denominations, the resurrection, as recorded in the Bible, is simply a metaphor for finding the “true” and “authentic” meaning and purpose of life.
And then you die.
But what does the Bible really say?
If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
— 1 Corinthians 15:19
Humans were never meant to die, but that is only possible because God is eternal. In other words, humans can only experience the same eternal living that God lives when we live in personal, loving fellowship with Him.
When we live in personal, loving fellowship with Him, He gives us eternal life. That is why God gave humanity the tree of life in the Garden of Eden. When we lost access to the tree, we lost the gift of being able to live eternally.
And so, metaphorically speaking, but also in a very real sense, Jesus is our Tree of Life. And when we feed from Him, because of faith, we have that gift of eternal life restored to us once again. That is to say, we have to seek the Lord, and we will live.
Father, You are the Giver of life. You are the Author of salvation. What we lost because of selfish greed, You restored with the sacrifice of Your Son. May Your Spirit help me to feed deeply from the Tree of Life, so that I may be nourished and happy and glorify Your name. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
