Can You Be Religious and Still Miss God's Heart?

December 8th, 2025
by John Erickson

Amos 3-5 and the everyday life of authentic worship

By Pastor John Erickson

Imagine somebody who plans an amazing romantic dinner every week.

Flowers. A spotless house. Beautiful food. Maybe even a violinist in the corner. I don't know what counts as romantic in your household, so fill in the details as needed.

Every week, the performance gets a little more impressive.

But suppose that for the rest of the week this person ignores their spouse, speaks harshly, and refuses to listen. Then dinner night arrives again, and they expect everything to be fine because, well, look at these flowers.

Would that relationship be healthy?

Of course not.

And Amos asks whether we ever treat God that way.

Special privilege, serious responsibility

In Amos 3, God reminds Israel that he brought them out of Egypt and established a special relationship with them.

They could have interpreted that relationship as permission to feel secure no matter how they lived. We're God's people. We're fine.

But God turns the assumption upside down: precisely because they have received so much, they are accountable for how they respond.

I was the oldest child growing up, and I remember feeling that the rules were stricter and the expectations higher for me. I could do more than my little brother, so more was expected of me. It did not always feel fair.

That memory helps me hear the connection between privilege and responsibility here. Israel's relationship with God was a calling to reflect His character, not permission to ignore it.

This is not a rejection of grace. It is an insistence that grace matters.

The more we know of God's character, the less sense it makes to go on treating people as if God's character were irrelevant.

When worship becomes a cover

By the time Amos reaches chapter 5, the indictment is almost shocking. God says he rejects the people's festivals and offerings. Why would God reject acts of worship he had instructed them to practice?

Because they were using the religious activities while ignoring the life those activities were supposed to form.

The courts were corrupt. The needy were exploited. The powerful could buy their way out of consequences. People could sing about the goodness of God while participating in systems that crushed their neighbors.

God wasn't objecting to music. He wasn't telling them to stop praying. He was exposing the lie that religious activity can be separated from obedience.

That lie is still appealing.

We can attend a service, memorize Scripture, and know the right answers while nurturing resentment, dishonesty, selfishness, or indifference in the rest of our lives.

I sometimes joke that sarcasm is my sixth love language. Amos 4:4-5 uses a sharp irony that gets my attention: go ahead, bring the offerings and boast about them. God is exposing people who love the appearance of worship while refusing its implications.

The flowers don't fix the relationship.

Don't seek the place; seek God

Amos warns Israel against treating religious centers such as Bethel and Gilgal as though a holy location could guarantee a healthy relationship with the Lord.

Those places carried history. They mattered to the people. But a sacred place is not a substitute for seeking a living God.

It's possible to do the same thing with church.

We can love the building, the songs, the routines, the tradition, even a particular pastor, and slowly confuse those things with the point of it all.

I say that as a pastor, so I am including myself in this warning.

If our relationship with Jesus consists only of what happens during a service, we are missing the breadth of what he invites us into.

He wants our ordinary lives. The conversation with our spouse. The decision at work. The way we spend money. The person we pass who needs help.

Let justice roll

Amos 5:24 gives the book one of its most memorable images: justice flowing like a river and righteousness like a never-failing stream.

Not a little splash of compassion when it is convenient. A continuing current.

Biblical justice is not only about punishing a wrongdoer after the damage has happened. It includes dealing rightly with people, protecting the vulnerable, and caring about whether our neighbors are being treated fairly.

There will be times when that requires more of us than writing a check or posting an opinion. It may mean giving our time, confronting an unfair practice, or refusing to profit from somebody else's weakness.

This isn't a separate agenda from loving God. It is one way our love becomes visible.