“Good Ripe Fruit In The Harvest Basket Of The LORD!”

“Good Ripe Fruit In The Harvest Basket Of The LORD!”(Am.8:1-10).
African wisdom says “The big fish swallow the small ones.” They also consider that “fools are food for the wise.”
Through Amos the message was passed on to Israel and today on to us as well. It is a message to the children of God who have abandoned the true practice of the faith.
It is the promise of harvest time when God will gather his people. But there will be no joy and celebration for the ungodly.
We cannot fill the house of God when at the same time we “trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land.”
While we observe the Sabbath and celebrate other traditional feast days, we are longing for it to be over as soon as possible. We want it to be over so that we may market our harvests “skimping the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales.” Worst still, “buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even” the wastes from the harvests.
This is how deeply our religious hypocrisy has sunk! It is on record how someone handling church finances boasted to his friends that he doesn’t envy any government minister. He said they are too lowly as far as wealth and money is concerned. And that is the spirit down the hierarchical ladder where the language is “money-talk” and wealth acquisition. This is at the expense of the poor and needy who are considered fodder for the fire.
Evil schemes by children of God against others are scary; until the LORD has sworn: “I will never forget anything they have done…”
Dear friend, let us not continue to anger the LORD in such a way that his anger and fury will be against us.
May these words help to redirect us to return to the LORD so that he will not turn our religious feasts into mourning, nor all our singing into weeping. May we be good ripe fruit in the harvest basket of the LORD
Weekend prayer: Holy Spirit reroute our straying feet to the way of the LORD. Amen !
Have a blessed weekend! Peace be with you!
Rev Babila Fochang.