Inductive Bible Study March 7

Monday March 7, 2016

IBS

Amos 3:3

Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?

This sounds like common sense. Many people who don’t even know the Bible would see this verse and see that there is wisdom in it. The book of Amos is God correcting Israel for going the way of the world. God wanted Israel to return to Him and His commandments, but they hardened their hearts. This question, “Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?” is signifying how Israel’s sin has separated them from God. Throughout the Bible, the pattern is seen that when Israel was walking with the Lord, they were obeying God’s commands and giving Him the glory. When they were not walking with the Lord, they were disobeying God’s commands and giving themselves the glory.

In these days, we can look at ourselves in the same way God saw Israel in the book of Amos. When we are disobeying God, we are not walking with the Lord. Only when we are living in agreement with God and obeying His commands, we find that we are walking with the Lord. God wanted to pour out His grace on His people, but their hearts were hardened. It’s similar to a friendship that is broken. Sometimes we have a friend that we have come to be close with, but they begin going down a dark path. The unity becomes broken because the two friends are not living in agreement. The good friend is trying to amend the friendship, but the other friend is going astray because they refuse to put their selfishness to the side. It hurts so much to see a friend walk out of union because they are too selfish to make things right. Just like God to the Israelites, we can warn our friends and even try to make amendment to them. Sometimes it just doesn’t work because two people can’t walk together if they do not have unity. I have had to reject friends in the past because they refused to give up their selfishness and make things right, even though I had done my part to make things right.

Application: I want to walk in unity with my friends. When things come up that try to break that unity, I want to be so united that the bond can’t be broken. For the next seven months I am going to be with three others guys, Chris, Christian, and Ryan. I want us to be a team that can’t be broken. There may be many things that will come against us, so I want to be on good terms with them. When we all come back together tonight, I am going to talk it out with them and do my part in building up our unity by discussing how we can build each other up.