SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/26/2015
9:26 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
God commissioned Jonah
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Jonah 3:1-2
Message of the
verses: “1 Now the word of the LORD
came to Jonah the second
time, saying, 2 “Arise,
go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am
going to tell you."”
I know that those who have read some of my Spiritual
Diaries have read what has become one of my favorite quotes that Dr. Wiersbe
puts into many of his commentaries because it fits the situations from
different sections of Scripture. The
quote is from an old Scottish Preacher, George H. Morrison who said “The
victorious Christian life is a series of new beginnings,” and this surely fits
the situation that Jonah finds himself in at this particular time of his
life. Dr. Wiersbe then writes “When we
fall, the enemy wants us to believe that our ministry is ended and there’s no
hope for recovery, but our God is the God of the second chance. ‘The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second
time’ (Jonah 3:1). ‘Do not rejoice over
me, my enemy; when I fall, I will arise when I sit in darkness, the Lord will
be a Light to me (Micah 7:8, NKJV).”
The words of George Morrison have brought comfort to my
heart on many occasions after I have taken a spiritual fall and wondered if my
time to serve the Lord was done, or whether or not the Lord was done with
me. Now I read again freshly the story
of Jonah and am reminded of the things that God tells him “Now the word of the
LORD came to Jonah the second time.”
The Bible is full of stories of how God has forgiven
people when they have fallen as we think of Abraham when he fled to Egypt and
lied about his wife. We think of Jacob
who lied to his farther Isaac, but God restored him. Moses killed an Egyptian, but God restored
him. The killing by Moses was probably
done in self-defense. Then in the New
Testament we know the story of how Peter denied Jesus three times, but then in
the last chapter of John’s Gospel Jesus restored Peter by asking him if he
loved Me (Jesus) three times and each time He tells him to feed His sheep, and
then tells him to “Follow Me.”
We cannot use these examples as an excuse to sin. Dr. Wiersbe writes “The person who says ‘I
can go ahead and sin, because I know the Lord will forgive me’ has no
understanding of the awfulness of sin or the holiness of God. ‘But there is forgiveness with You, that You
may be feared’ (Ps. 130:4, NKJV). God in
His grace forgives our sins, but God in His government determines that we shall
reap what we sow, and the harvest can be very costly. Jonah paid dearly for rebelling against the
Lord.” Now we have one more sub-point to
look at and we will save that for the next SD.
11/26/2015 9:47 PM
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