SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/21/2015
10:10 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
Repentance PT-2
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Jonah 2:3
Message of the
verse: I mentioned in our last SD on
the book of Jonah that we are looking at the prayer that Jonah prayed in this
second chapter as he is repenting for the sin of not doing the will of God when
the Lord had told him to go to Nineveh.
He Accepted God’s
Discipline (Jonah 2:3): 3 “For You had cast me into the deep, Into the
heart of the seas, And the current engulfed me. All Your breakers and billows
passed over me.”
As we look at this verse we see that Jonah recognizes
that it was not the sailors who threw Jonah into the sea, but it was God who threw
him into the sea. Dr. Wiersbe points out
that once Jonah said the words that are found in verse three that he
acknowledged that God was discipline him and that he deserved it.
Dr. Wiersbe writes “How we respond to discipline determines
how much benefit we receive from it.
According to Hebrews 12:5-11, we have several options: we can despise God’s discipline and fight (v.
5); we can be discouraged and faint (v. 5); we can resist discipline and invite
stronger discipline, possibly even death
(v. 9); or we can submit to the Father and mature in faith and love (v.
7). Discipline is to the believer what
exercise and training are to the athlete (v. 11); it enables us to run the race
with endurance and reach the assigned goal (vv. 1-2).”
We can tell that Jonah is a child of God for God
disciplined him, for if he were not His child He would not discipline him. Hebrews 12:8 says “But if you are without
chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and
not sons.” One more thing we need to
realize about God’s discipline “Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the
present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of
righteousness to those who have been trained by it (Hebrews 12:11).” God does it in love is the point here.
We mentioned in the quote by Dr. Wiersbe that one of the
things that can happen if we do not accept the discipline of God is that we can
die and he wrote the following endnote about this, something we need to
understand. “There is a sin unto death’
(1 John 5:17, KJV). ‘The Lord shall
judge His people. It is a fearful thing
to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb. 10:30-31).’ Professed believers who play with sin and
trifle with God’s loving discipline are asking for trouble. Better that we should die than that we should
resist His will and bring disgrace to the name of Christ.”
11/21/2015 10:28 PM
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