Jonah 3:1-3 – Jonah’s Response to God’s Command
Who is this Jonah who now sets off for Nineveh? Well, he is a changed Jonah. He has been reshaped. Gone is the rebellion, replaced with a wholehearted commitment. Gone is the desire to run in the opposite direction from Nineveh, replaced by a desire to arise and go where God is sending him. Gone is the heartless attitude to the Ninevites, replaced with some form of compassion. This is a renewed Jonah, a Jonah with a heart in the right place, feet travelling in the right direction, and a mind focused on receiving and sharing God’s message when he gets there.
How has this come about? One could say that it’s because of his experience in the sea and then the belly of the great fish, and that’s true, but it’s what lay behind that experience that brought about the change, not the experience itself. Many people go through harsh experiences, but it doesn’t change them; it doesn’t lead to a change in their attitude or their heart. Such changes can only be, and are solely, the fruit of God’s work of grace in his life. God had allowed this man to run, but for a reason. It was to bring Jonah back to Himself with a broken and contrite heart, so that he could be renewed with a superabundance of grace. As Paul writes in Romans chapter 5 verse 20, “where sin increases, grace abounds all the more”. (Not, as Paul makes clear in chapter 6 verse 1, that we are to sin grotesquely so that grace will abound all the more.)
Surely, we should desire to be in such a place of communion with God that the superabundance of His grace would be our constant experience. Is it not the man, as the Psalmist says in Psalm 126, who, conscious of his sinful inability, goes out weeping with the precious seed, only to return rejoicing at the harvest he is allowed to gather in? But how can we get to that place without running from God’s presence? It is simple but not easy; we must ask God to show us our sin, then confess it with a genuinely broken and contrite heart.
Question
- How does Jonah respond to God’s command this time?
Prayer Points
- Pray that we would respond in obedience to God.
- Use prayer points from your congregation.
- Pray for family matters.