Bible Verse of the Day Sunday April 30th, 2023

Jonah 1:3 But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD.

This account of Jonah is the only incident recorded in God's Word where a Prophet not only rejected a call from God but, in Jonah's case, ran in the opposite direction. Many theories have existed concerning why Jonah would run as far away from where God wanted him. The most logical view is that he must have thought that God would choose someone else to preach to the Ninevites if he refused. Given the evil in Nineveh, Jonah could have been concerned for his safety (Nahum 1). It could have been because Johan did not want the evil people of Nineveh to escape the Judgment of God. In the 1st chapter of the Prophet Nahum, we see that God had already warned the Ninevites that there would be no descendants to carry on their names and that He would prepare their graves (Nahum 1:14-15).  

 

It is interesting to contemplate and hypothesize why Jonah did not want to follow God's calling to preach to the Ninevites. The better way of looking at this incident of Johan being in the belly of a large fish for three days is why we sometimes do not answer God's calling. God's very same command to Jonah has been issued to all followers and believers in Christ Jesus to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8; Matthew 28:19-20. We cannot run and hide from God through justifications and self-entered explanations. Johan may have justified what he was doing by thinking that God led him to that ship just when he needed it. 

 

One member of the Body of Christ out of the will of God can cause the work of God for the entire Body to deteriorate. Most of the time, all splits and disharmony in Churches happen because certain members are out of fellowship with Christ Jesus. We cannot be out of communion with Christ Jesus and expect to be in unified harmony with our brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus.

 

Satan will provide us with as much justification as we want when we are not ready to follow God's will for our lives. Some may listen to their human instincts or urges and declare that God told them to do this or go here or there. If we look for excuses to follow our will instead of God's will, our fraudulent and devious hearts, in conjunction with the wiles of Satan, will provide all the vindications we want. When we, like Jonah, decide to get away from God, it will be a fool's errand because no one can escape the omnipresence of God. Not only will we not get to where we want to go, but we will also have to cover the travel tab. If we surrender our lives, hearts, minds, bodies, and souls to Christ Jesus and his will for our lives, not only will we get to where God wants us, but God will pay the expenses. He has already paid for and provided everything we will ever need for any situation we will ever face. He did this on the Cross of Calvary.