The plumb line day4

God told Amos to set out a plumb line and use it to judge the people. Plumb lines are interesting things. Tie a piece of string to a weight of some sort and let it hang down. Gravity works to create a straight line with no deviance.

So simple, a child could use it.

Plumb lines are still used today by carpenters and construction workers, because they’re inexpensive, effective and completely reliable. There’s no room for some relativist carpenter saying something ridiculous like, “Well, what’s plumb for you isn’t plumb for me.” There are no pluralist carpenters saying, “Let’s take a poll to see whose plumb is the real plumb.”

Plumb is plumb. Gravity doesn’t lie.

Christians are fond of using the analogy of the plumb line. And in an age of relativity, where objective truth is often downplayed for the sake of political correctness or popular opinion, Christians should feel the need to advocate some sort of standard of right and wrong. Usually, we equate God’s Word, the Bible, with the plumb line.

And that’s okay in most situations. But that’s not what this story tells us. According to Amos, plumb is something else. Plumb isn’t God saying, “Read My book.” Plumb is God saying, “Treat others the way you treat Me.” God even goes so far as to say, “The way you treat others is the way you treat Me” (see Matthew 25.31-46).

So simple, a child could do it.

Are there hungry people? Feed them. Sick people? Heal them. Lonely people? Befriend them. That’s how God plans on judging His people (and He refuses to judge on a curve like Israel was hoping).

You may have gained all the knowledge you can squeeze out of the Bible. You may attend lots of church services, volunteer to serve on committees and sell cookbooks for your women’s ministry. But do you have God’s heart for the poor and marginalized in your own society? That’s plumb.

Later in the Story, one of Jesus’ closest friends writes, “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3.17-18).

Do we love people? Do we really, really love people? This isn’t about feeling warm fuzzies for them or getting choked up when we see late-night infomercials about hungry children. Does our love for them really show in our actions? Having the right beliefs and values (days 2 and 3) are of little good until they begin to direct and change our behaviour.

What if everybody took God seriously on this one? What if God’s plumb line of compassionate behaviour toward widows and orphans and strangers began to take root in you? In your small group or your whole church? What if everybody in your neighbourhood or in your school began to plan and act to feed the hungry, heal the sick, visit the prisoner, clothe the naked?

If everyone jumped in and started acting according to God’s plumb line, we might just see God’s kingdom come, His will being done on earth as it is in heaven, the upside down turned right side up, the crooked set straight.

 

God of glory and grace, You have spoken timeless truth through Your servants the prophets, and through them You have called and inspired Your people to be concerned about the things that are of concern to You. You have revealed Your compassion for the poor, the orphans and widows, the destitute and the oppressed. Please enhance my compassion for these people as well and show me the specific things You would have me to do in order to manifest the Spirit of Christ among the needy. Let me not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. Open my eyes to the opportunities You have already placed before me, so that I will become an agent of grace and reconciliation to those whom You love. Let me make a difference in this world by being faithful and obedient to Your heavenly calling.

In Jesus’s name, Amen