Day 346

Amos 7:1–9:15; Revelation 3:7-22; Psalm 131:1-3; Proverbs 29:23

AS WE CONTINUED in the book of Amos today, God gave the prophet visions of His plans to send locusts and fire on the land. In response, Amos interceded before the Lord: “O Sovereign LORD, please forgive us or we will not survive, for Israel is so small” (Amos 7:2).

God heard Amos’s prayer and relented, instead giving a third vision of a plumb line and revealing to Amos, “I will test my people with this plumb line. I will no longer ignore all their sins” (Amos 7:8).

In our reading from Revelation, we concluded the seven brief letters from Jesus to the churches of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea —each in the province of Asia. These letters offered the churches needed encouragement, warnings, and a message of endurance.

In our reading from Psalms, David offered language for what a humble heart looks like. Obviously, David was a king with enormous power. The pull toward arrogance and pride would have been formidable for a person in his position, and yet he writes of the contentment found in humility:

LORD, my heart is not proud; my eyes are not haughty. I don’t concern myself with matters too great or too awesome for me to grasp. Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself, like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother’s milk. Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within me.

While David’s words offered the sense of inner contentment which humility brings, our reading from Proverbs concisely summed up the facts of the matter: “Pride ends in humiliation, while humility brings honor” (Proverbs 29:23).

Let’s take these ancient words to heart today, for they are God’s words to us. Arrogance and pride will not bring us to a place of humble contentment; rather, they will leads us on the path of humiliation. If we want to live a life of honor, then humility is the path we must walk.

MEDITATION:

The LORD’s home reaches up to the heavens, while its foundation is on the earth. He draws up water from the oceans and pours it down as rain on the land. The LORD is his name!