Jonah 2:1-2 - Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish, saying, “I called out to the LORD, out of my distress, and He answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and You heard my voice….” ESV
While trying desperately to escape doing the will of God Jonah finds himself in serious trouble with the LORD. What does God do? He sends a mighty wind on the sea and the ship, and sailors are in trouble. They are in way over their head, and they are seasoned sailors. There are times in our life when we may be like Jonah. We are on the run. We know there are things in our life God wants us to do and we refuse.
Jesus said in Luke 17:32 - "Remember Lot's wife." When was the last time you remembered Lot's wife? If you were to think about her what would your thoughts be? That she disobeyed a very easy command found in Gen. 19:17 - …"Do not look behind you,…". What did the text mean when it said she looked back? The Hebrew word for "looked" used here is "nabat" (naw-bat'); it means to scan, i.e. look intently at; by implication, to regard with pleasure, favor or care.[i] Lot's wife was used for an example that you can be freed from a life of sin but look back at it with thoughts of pleasure. She wanted to return and when she looked back disobeying the angelic command she turned into a pillar of salt. The Israelites looked back to Egypt and saw their enslavement as something that wasn't so bad. When in reality it was horrible. Have we ever looked back to our life of sinfulness and thought "Oh, it wasn't really that bad." Do yourself a favor and don't look back on your past and think it wasn't that bad. Remember this; it was bad enough to put Jesus on the cross. Rom. 5:8 - But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Did you notice Paul said we were sinners when Christ died for us. We didn't have our life all together.
What are you going to do? My recommendation is to do what Jonah did and that is he prayed and asked God for help. We must never forget that God is more gracious than we are and even though we have disobeyed Him. He will do right by us because of His gracious nature. Think About This: Forgiveness doesn't exonerate the violator. Forgiveness liberates the victim. It's a gift you give yourself. Stay Pumped, Gary A. Serago Minister of God's Word [i] (Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright © 1994, 2003 Biblesoft, Inc. and International Bible Translators, Inc.)
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Luke 6:22 - Blessed are you when men hate you, and ostracize you, and insult you, and scorn your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man. NASU
I wanted my friends to experience this same forgiveness, and that is when I became the recipient of a totally new type of blessing. A blessing that I was not prepared to receive. The blessing I refer to is the one where people will hate you, ostracize you, and insult you because you tried to share the Gospel with them. There will be parties you would have always been invited to attend before, but you will no longer receive an invitation to them. There will be face to face meetings which cause you to walk away and wonder, "What just happened?" You will be insulted, you will be called names, your past will be remembered by your friends, and you will be labeled as "judgmental." Yes, I was totally confused. I thought for sure my family and friends would have been glad to find out what I had discovered. But instead, I was blessed in a way I was not prepared to receive.
I couldn't remember one insult or even care that some people hated me on the day I baptized my father and my mother. But come to think of it. I can't remember any insult, ostracizing or being hated that came to my mind as I baptized other people into Christ either. So yes, I really feel blessed that I have been able to tell others about Jesus Christ, my LORD and Savior. I have been blessed exactly the way God said I would. I have been hated, ostracized and insulted because I am a believer in Jesus Christ.
I can tell you this: the older you get, the less any of it matters and the more important it is to be friends with Jesus. Think About These: When we let God guide, He will provide. Fear not tomorrow. God is already there. Our faith deals with what God says - not what learned men say. Stay Pumped, Gary A. Serago Minister of God's Word Luke 9:13-14 - But He said to them, "You give them something to eat!" And they said, "We have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless perhaps we go and buy food for all these people." 14(For there were about five thousand men.) And He said to His disciples, "Have them sit down to eat in groups of about fifty each." NASU
Jesus wants His disciples to feed this enormously large crowd. They give Him an excuse as to why they can't accomplish His command. Their excuse was we don't have enough food to feed all of these people. Jesus was a miracle worker and a teacher. The people were going to be the recipients of a miracle and the disciples the recipients of a very valuable lesson. Jesus was and is the Son of God and because of this He has exceptional powers. He used them this day to perform a miracle that we all know as the miracle of the loaves and fishes. He commands them to have everyone sit down in groups of 50 so that it will be easier to feed them. He multiplies the two fishes and five loaves and next thing we have is people fed and disciples amazed. Jesus knew all along what He was going to do whether the disciples bought into His plan or not. Sometimes in life not everyone will buy into our plans but as long as we know what we want to accomplish all we need to do is stick to our plan. There will always be people who will try and talk us out of what we can see being accomplished. We can't expect people to believe what we believe because they haven't done the research we have done and they have not had the life experiences we have had. It would be like asking a first grader to help us write a paper for our Master's degree thesis.
In the Gospel of John we are told there was a lad who had the five barley loaves and two fishes that Jesus used to feed the 5,000. What do we have in our possession that when given to God could be a blessing for many? Please don't think I am referring to money. That is the last thing I am thinking about at this time. I am thinking about something you have been gifted with by God and if you asked God to lead you that you would go and use this gift He has blessed you with to help others. If you will use this gift you might be able to help someone become a child of God. I don't know of a greater blessing then helping someone become a child of God. Use your giftedness to help others and you will be "Living Like Jesus". Think About This: What would you attempt to do if you knew you couldn't fail? Stay Pumped, Gary A. Serago Minister of God's Word Luke 9:12- Now the day was ending, and the twelve came and said to Him, "Send the crowd away, that they may go into the surrounding villages and countryside and find lodging and get something to eat; for here we are in a desolate place." NASU
The first lesson we can learn from this text is Jesus didn't let "People's Suggestions" influence His decision making. Jesus was a praying man. He was constantly in prayer to the Heavenly Father. He had the Holy Spirit without measure. John says it this way: "For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God; for He gives the Spirit without measure." He was in contact with His Heavenly Father through prayer and this is what helped Him make decisions. The disciple's "suggestion" is for Jesus to send the people (crowd) away. Jesus knows immediately this is not what His Father would want Him to do. He doesn't send them away. If you know the story of the feeding of the 5,000 you know instead of Him sending them away He will feed them. In the movie The Boys in the Boat the coach decided to go with the JV team of rowers because their time was faster than the Varsity rowers. Just about everyone disagreed with Coach Ulbrickson's decision, but he had a rule and that is the team with the fastest time was the team that would be putting their boat in the water. Coach Ulbrickson would not allow other "people's suggestions" to determine for him a decision that rested squarely upon his shoulders.
Our plan should be like Jesus' plan. We should be praying to our Heavenly Father and allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us. The Spirit will be able to guide us when we have the Word of God dwelling in us. Here is how the apostle Paul said it: Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom… (Col 3:16). The more the Word of God gets in us (through reading) the easier it will be to identify immediately "people's suggestions" as being correct or incorrect. One thing to remember in life and that is if the decision is yours to make then make it and be willing to live with the results. The disciples were giving Jesus their suggestion and it was a unanimous "send them away". However, Jesus had a much better idea and that was feed all 5,000. You might ask why did Jesus feed the 5,000 and the correct would be because He could. Why are you going to do what lies before you? The correct answer would be because God is leading you in this direction and He has equipped you for this task. Think About These: No one can give you wiser advice than God. The more you trust God the easier it becomes to do the hard things. You'll never find peace of mind until you've learned to listen to God. “Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice.” – Steve Jobs Stay Pumped, Gary A. Serago Minister of God's Word Luke 22:15 - And He said to them, "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer;… NASB
Philippians 1:23 - But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better;… NASB 1 Thes. 2:17 - But we, brethren, having been bereft of you for a short while — in person, not in spirit — were all the more eager with great desire to see your face. NASB
This is the definition from Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance. We have taken the word "lust" and always connect it to something that is bad, but you can see from the scripture references above that both Jesus and the apostle Paul lusted, but not in an evil way.
He thought about it and He thought about it "earnestly," the text says. He thought about it, He was going to announce being betrayed by Judas (vs.22), and denied by Peter (vs.34). Wouldn't it be great if we thought earnestly about partaking of the Lord's Supper with our brothers and sisters on the Lord's Day? Have we ever thought about taking the Lord's Supper the week before? At times, I am guilty of not thinking much about it until Sunday. Shame on me!
I have had strong desires (lusts) to go to Heaven and I have had the same strong desires (lusts) to stay here on earth. The second way he "lusted" was about seeing his Christian brothers and sisters in Thessaloniki. I have experienced this type of great desire (lusts) also. It was when I departed Mbale, Uganda, Africa after teaching God's Word to some of the greatest brothers and sisters in Christ that I have ever met. It was that great desire (lust) that took me back four more times. One of my best friends, Dennis Okoth, lived and worked there. What an honor it was for me to serve the Lord with this gracious brother in the Lord. He has now moved to another ministry in Kenya and may the Lord continue to bless him, his wife Mary, and that special ministry. When I lust about Africa, I could say it like the apostle Paul, it is "with great desire to see your face."
Don't lust in a bad way. Lust in a good way. Hopefully, you will be lusting about taking the Lord's Supper, going to Heaven to be with Jesus, or going to see some family, friends or brothers and sisters in Christ. Think About These: Christianity is a way of walking as well as a way of talking. What can't be done by advice can often be done by example. Stay Pumped, Gary A. Serago Minister of God's Word |
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