Let us pray: Father, your word says, in Psalm 23:1 "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." Thank you for being our shepherd. In Jesus' name. Amen!
There is an old song I remember hearing in my younger days called How deep is your love, I really need to know? I want to show you that the love of God runs deep. I don’t know about you, but I want a love that lasts more than one night.
The book of Jonah is known by many as a book that talks about a man by the name of Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet who received a word from God and he disobeyed in order to flee from an assignment that was given. The Bible talks about an Omnipresent God. His Omnipresence is a presence both in place and in time. But isn’t that just like some of us today, we spend time in the presence of God and when God speaks and we sometimes disagree with His words we disobey and run like God is not there. David said in Psalm 139:7-8 "Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or Where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there." Jeremiah 23:24 says, "Can anyone hide himself in secret places, So I shall not see him? says the Lord; “Do I not fill heaven and earth? Says the Lord." How many of you know you cannot run from the presence of God?
The word of the Lord spoke in Chapter 1 vs 2, arise and go. Jonah was being sent. He chose to end the conversation when he arose and went in the opposite direction of what was spoken. Chapter 1 vs 3. One decision caused him to enter into disobedience which led him into sin. Sin will always take you further than you want to go. His disobedience led him out of a place of peace and into a place of turmoil. Jonah was in an UP place. He was in the presence of the Almighty. Disobedience led him into a DOWN place and not in a good way. He started a process he didn’t ask for but, God’s love runs deep. We see the beginning of the process in vs 4 and vs 17.
God told me to tell you, your disobedience causes preparation. That word preparation means the action or process of making ready or being made ready for use or consideration. Another definition states something done to get ready for an event or undertaking. To sum it up, your disobedience causes a process to make you ready for the master's use. He said, your disobedience won't stop His Word from manifesting because if it could then that would mean that God is a lie and my Bible tells me that God is not a man that He should lie. When God speaks, His word will not return void. It must accomplish the thing which it was set out to do. Either God will get someone else or He will put things in your life that will cause you to obey.
I remember studying for an assignment and the presence of God filled the room and God began to speak. What God was asking of me caused me to become uncomfortable because He wanted me to talk about a place in my life I wasn’t ready to deal with. Before I knew it, I spoke what was in my heart and said I can’t do that. I didn’t say go get somebody else because He’s God, I didn’t want to insult Him. He wasn’t dealing with somebody else He was dealing with me. I said you’re going too deep, let me get up and go into another room of the house which was the kitchen and cook me something to eat because you went too deep. So, I got up and went into the kitchen, found a frying pan and the phone rings. When the conversation was over with the person who called and they had no idea what God was dealing with me on, when they finished speaking thus saith the Lord, I obeyed. I didn’t wrestle with the command any longer. I didn’t stay in that place of disobedience. I quickly realized that it wasn’t about me, it was about the assignment. Don’t be so quick to turn God’s assignment around and make it about you. All He needed was a willing vessel ready to obey so that His power could be on display. I’m going to leave that right there.
It wasn’t about Jonah and his emotions. It was about the assignment. It wasn't about one man it was about a people that if God’s messenger would obey and preach a message of repentance that would cause them to believe and turn from their evil ways, they would not perish. 2 Peter 3:9 "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long suffering to us-ward, not that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." In other words, you don't get to judge who I forgive. You don't get to judge who I have mercy on. You don't get to judge who I am gracious too.
When Jonah went into the opposite direction of the instructions given, the scriptures says he went down. He was in an UP place and vs 3 it says he went down to Joppa, and found a ship, paid the fare, and went down into it. How many of you know that sin will always cost you more than you’re willing to pay? It almost cost Jonah his life. Be careful when you choose to go your own way. I am so glad we serve a God whose love runs deep even when we go our own way.
Read Chapter 2:1 If you find yourself traveling down the wrong road remember there will always be a place to turn around.
Isaiah 55:8 says, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways. In the end, Jonah said, I knew you to be a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness, One who forgives. All it takes is for a person to repent and ask you to come into their heart, accept your Son Jesus who died on the cross for their sins, went to the grave and rose to sit on the right one of the Father forever making intercession for them. You’re that God who makes a way for all to return unto you. One day when God speaks every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord!
~Prophetess Tracy McCoy
