Amos 5:14-15
“Seek good and not evil, that you may live; So the Lord God of hosts will be with you, as you have spoken. Hate evil, love good; establish justice in the gate. It may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”
In reality, every word of the book of Amos outlines what Israel needed to do then, and we need to do today.
“Seek good and not evil, that you may live; so the LORD God of hosts will be with you, as you have spoken. Hate evil, love good; establish justice in the gate.” A person does not need to seek God if He has already revealed Himself to him. Thus, seek means “to turn” to Him in repentance, not necessarily “to look for”. This statement is a way of saying, “Set aside your time and life for God.”
Seek in the Hebrew is an imperative and has the force of a command. Seeking good, or seeking God (verse 4), is an act that we have to set ourselves to do; it is not a natural inclination (Romans 8:7). But it is worth the effort, for its product is life – not just physical existence, but life as God lives it (John 17:3). If we determine to seek good, and continue in it, the result – truly living! – will follow. Seeking the Lord produces godly life. In living by every word of God, we should notice the order in which He lists these commands: “Seek good and not evil. . . . Hate evil, love good.” The action of turning to good precedes the emotions of hating evil and loving good. Holiness involves action and emotion: seeking and shunning, loving good and hating evil. He wants us to turn to the good and make it a target in our daily life. If we wait for God to infuse us with the right kind of feeling before we try to do good, then we will wait a long time because it will never come. We have to take action first by faith and the corresponding right feeling will follow.
