God’s Plumb Line

God’s ultimate desire is for humanity to come back into that loving relationship He once had with them in the Garden of Eden. This is evident in the Great Commandment where we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. It is what God created for us to have from the very beginning.

Unfortunately sin entered the picture and separated us from God, and it is this same disease of sin that continues to separate us from that loving relationship today.

So, how does God get us to return, and how does God let His people know when they’ve strayed away from that love relationship? It is through the plumb line of His word.

The prophet Amos said, “Behold, the Lord stood on a wall made with a plumb line, with a plumb line in His hand…Then the Lord said: ‘Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of My people Israel; I will not pass by them anymore.’” (Amos 7:7-8)

What is a plumb line? It was the earlier form of a level. It’s the way people used to see if something like a wall was level or straight. And so what the prophet Amos is saying is that God sets a plumb line to our lives so that when we start to depart from Him, when we start to no longer live our lives in the loving relationship, when we get to that point when we’re ready to collapse, we’ll realize our mistake and get our lives back straight with Him.

And the plumb line is God’s word, the Bible.

Jesus said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.” (John 14:23)

Fall back in love with God today, or as Jesus exhorts us in his letter to the Ephesian Church to return to that first love relationship. (Revelation 2:4-7)