The Ways of God: He Gets our Attention
Scripture Verses: Jonah 1:4, 1:17, 4:7-8
God Delivers Us: To those whom have questions such as these: 1. Who can I hate since God does not love them? 2. Where does God work in this world? 3. How does God expect me to relate to my enemies? Through these words today we can see just how powerless we can be in our life and often times act just like Jonah. In the person can sense darkness over them when they things just don't feel right inside of a person and we can go through everything before we get it right. I know in my own life I've had things happen to where I've been in deep personal bitterness over different situations that I've been had been threatened, deeply hurt towards different people that had harmed me emotionally, physcially, spiritually in my life, and I had blamed them for my pain and had hated them very deeply. I ran from them and just didn't think about what God wanted me to do in such horrible circumstances that had happened to me. Often times family members can put a hurt on us that's unbearable to us and when it happens we go through all of those emotional turmoils like being on a roller coasters ride isn't fun at all. That goes with friends,next door neighbors and strangers too.We get stuck in an all out bitterness from those hurtful influences of others that had hurt us. As a child of God we must let go of our pains of all past hurts,habits,hang-ups, abuse, of what had taken place. Until we are able to forgive and release it and forgive them (self), it will hold us like it's prisoner. This is what unlocks all doors of resentments and it removes those hadcuff of hate. It's that power of God that breaks those chains of bitterness and those shackles of selfishness that in our life. In God's word it shares with us His Promises (1 Peter 5:10,11). We may need forgivness in blaming God Let him off the hook for what others had choosen to do in ones own free will,not God's will. None of us is responsible for all the things that have happened to us. But we are responsible for the way we react to them. As we see in the story about 'Jonah" he felt this way too.He just outright hated those people in "Nineveh" for thier cruelity toward Isreal. God had told him to go to Nineveh and to warn them that destruction planned for them. Instead he completely ran from God's instructions. What did he do? He got on board a boat headed in the opposite direction. God hd caused a life threatening storm and Jonah ended up in the belly of a fish. Suddenly God had his attention, and Jonah reluctantly obeyed. Jonah preached to the people of Nineveh, they changed thier ways, which God put off his planned destruction. Jonah complained," Didn't I say before I left home that you would do this,Lord? That is why I ran away... I knew how easily you could cancel your plans for destroying these people" (Jonah 4:2). We cannot remove all forms of bitterness on our own. And it will never be easy to accept that God wants to rescue even the people we hate. We must allow God to change our hearts as we work toward forgivness in all of those that hurt us in our life.
1. In the Bible, God got Jonah's attention & made him listen to his commands
A.By the wind and water during a storm (Jonah 1:4)
B. By the whale (large fish) that swallowed him up (Jonah 1:17)
C. By the withering of a plant by a worm (Jonah 4:7)
D.By the wind & sun to weary him (Jonah 4:8)
2. God still gets our attention today
A.Through a restless spirit
B.Through sickness
God Delivers Us: To those whom have questions such as these: 1. Who can I hate since God does not love them? 2. Where does God work in this world? 3. How does God expect me to relate to my enemies? Through these words today we can see just how powerless we can be in our life and often times act just like Jonah. In the person can sense darkness over them when they things just don't feel right inside of a person and we can go through everything before we get it right. I know in my own life I've had things happen to where I've been in deep personal bitterness over different situations that I've been had been threatened, deeply hurt towards different people that had harmed me emotionally, physcially, spiritually in my life, and I had blamed them for my pain and had hated them very deeply. I ran from them and just didn't think about what God wanted me to do in such horrible circumstances that had happened to me. Often times family members can put a hurt on us that's unbearable to us and when it happens we go through all of those emotional turmoils like being on a roller coasters ride isn't fun at all. That goes with friends,next door neighbors and strangers too.We get stuck in an all out bitterness from those hurtful influences of others that had hurt us. As a child of God we must let go of our pains of all past hurts,habits,hang-ups, abuse, of what had taken place. Until we are able to forgive and release it and forgive them (self), it will hold us like it's prisoner. This is what unlocks all doors of resentments and it removes those hadcuff of hate. It's that power of God that breaks those chains of bitterness and those shackles of selfishness that in our life. In God's word it shares with us His Promises (1 Peter 5:10,11). We may need forgivness in blaming God Let him off the hook for what others had choosen to do in ones own free will,not God's will. None of us is responsible for all the things that have happened to us. But we are responsible for the way we react to them. As we see in the story about 'Jonah" he felt this way too.He just outright hated those people in "Nineveh" for thier cruelity toward Isreal. God had told him to go to Nineveh and to warn them that destruction planned for them. Instead he completely ran from God's instructions. What did he do? He got on board a boat headed in the opposite direction. God hd caused a life threatening storm and Jonah ended up in the belly of a fish. Suddenly God had his attention, and Jonah reluctantly obeyed. Jonah preached to the people of Nineveh, they changed thier ways, which God put off his planned destruction. Jonah complained," Didn't I say before I left home that you would do this,Lord? That is why I ran away... I knew how easily you could cancel your plans for destroying these people" (Jonah 4:2). We cannot remove all forms of bitterness on our own. And it will never be easy to accept that God wants to rescue even the people we hate. We must allow God to change our hearts as we work toward forgivness in all of those that hurt us in our life.
1. In the Bible, God got Jonah's attention & made him listen to his commands
A.By the wind and water during a storm (Jonah 1:4)
B. By the whale (large fish) that swallowed him up (Jonah 1:17)
C. By the withering of a plant by a worm (Jonah 4:7)
D.By the wind & sun to weary him (Jonah 4:8)
2. God still gets our attention today
A.Through a restless spirit
B.Through sickness
No comments:
Post a Comment