Sunday, December 20, 2009

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Read Jonah 4:4-11

God has a lesson for Jonah to learn through all of this. God is there again (still) for Jonah. We can learn from our mistakes, our circumstances and even from our anger or any other emotion we experience. The lesson Jonah is to learn is that God places value on all men and that He shows mercy to all including Jonah with his wrong attitude and what he knows about God.

Jonah got alone some place an isolated himself. Was he pouting? Was he venting? I don't know but I do know that in our alone moments God can and will step in and speak to us. Jonah spoke to God and asked for his life to be taken, but God...

God chose to help Jonah see for himself the error of his ways. He's done that for me before, how about you? Has God helped you in a way to see that you have been wrong about something? Plain and simple, wrong. There are times we are wrong. We may think we are right, but God in His compassion and mercy takes an ideal situation for giving us His instruction that puts us in our place, a place to repent and receive His forgiveness and move on. This is that place in Jonah's life.

God uses a plant with Jonah. He used a donkey with Balaam, a rooster for Peter, and blind eyes for Paul. The type of plant doesn't really matter but we do see that it's a fast growing plant as it grew overnight. It was a Godsend to Jonah as it brought shade to him in the heat of the day but by the next morning it was eaten up by a worm. Jonah was again angry as the sun beat on his head and he grew faint.

Here he is again, wanting to die. Why? He's playing the fool (read Proverbs some time). Jonah has just obeyed God and caused a whole city to come to know Him. Why can't he see this? Instead he's sucked up in himself and has misplaced his values. Consider the value of Nineveh? Consider the fact that though they were not morally innocent, were helpless to know how to escape their plight before God, and that without a prophet, Jonah, they would have remained trapped in the wickedness and all lost. Maybe forever!

Verse 10 and 11 God explains to Jonah.

"God said, 'What's this? How is it that you can change your feelings for pleasure to anger over night about a mere shade tree that you did nothing to get? You neither planted nor watered it. It grew up one night and died the next night. So, why can't I likewise change what I feel about Nineveh from anger to pleasure, this big city of more than 120,000 childlike peple who don't yet know right from wrong, to say nothing of all the innocent animals?'" (Taken from The Message)


Jonah's prophecy was not fulfilled as God sent him to Nineveh saying, "Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" Nineveh wasn't overthrown, was it? The entire city was saved. That would make you feel like a blooming idiot if you were Jonah, wouldn't it? But God used that prophecy and saved Nineveh. God got the glory! Jonah knew it would happen, that they would repent and be saved. He knew God's character and he knew Nineveh would be saved as God would show His compassion and mercy upon them, not to overthrow the city. So was Jonah out of his pity party now or was he still stuck? Did God's message to Jonah come through loud and clear that Jonah could now move on?

Let's hope for the best because that's exactly what the Lord wants for us. To see the evil ways in our lives and repent so that we are able to move on with God. Today choose to do just that and move forward knowing that your loving, compassionate Father is with you in all that He asks of you... even if you look the fool for God. Will you do as God asks of you? From the belly of a big fish, in front of 120,000 people... whose lives depend on you and your obedience to God like the lives of those in Nineveh depended on Jonah's obeying the word of the Lord? The word of the Lord came to Jonah. He obeyed. Obey God today.

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