There’s a repeated call to seek the Lord in the opening of Amos 5. “Seek Me and live” and “Seek the Lord and live.”

Our life depends on finding the Lord. He promises to be found by those seeking, but there are also warnings in Scripture to seek Him while He may be found.

How do we find God? Prayer and the Scriptures are the way. We can use teaching to point us in the right direction. To the extent that teaching is teaching Scripture and Scriptural truth, it can help us know God, be finding out who He is.

Who is God? “He made the Pleiades and Orion; He turns the shadow of death into morning.” He is the one who made the constellations. He named and numbered the stars. They are His creation. He can take darkness and turn it into light.

There is another command to seek in this chapter. “Seek good and not evil, that you may live.”

This is really the same command. All that is good is God and from Him. All that is evil is not of God. Seeking God is getting to know what is good and learning to avoid what is evil.

We’re told that if we go after good, “the Lord God of hosts will be with you.” His Presence is our prize. He’s our joy and our life, now and forever. It’s a treasure worth seeking.

We love the good, and we hate the evil. The evil is not the person perpetrating the evil. We love the people. We have compassion on those doing evil because they are under the control, or the sway, of the evil one.

We know that we would be enemies of God, children of wrath but for the grace of God. We show mercy because He showed us mercy. We can feel empathy because we know what it’s like for sin to make us do stupid and awful things.

What God wants is to be with us. To be with us we need to obey. A holy God needs a holy people separate from evil. He can’t be joined with evil.

He’s not after our money, our songs, our time in church. He’s after us. God says, “Take away from Me the noise of your songs,” and “I do not savor your sacred assemblies.”

I love the thought that our gatherings could be something God savors if we are loving Him by loving each other.