Friday, June 03, 2016

When doing a study of a given portion of God’s word never think you have finished the study until you have crystallized your thoughts into some applications to your own life. As a result of my study of Jonah 3 I came away with a number of personal applications I could make to my own life. First, don’t presume upon God to give you a second chance. Buy up the opportunity He offers you now. Jonah did get a second chance: “The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.” He blew it the first time as described in chapter 1. God graciously gave him a second chance. Fortunately he didn’t blow it a second time. In his case the second chance was to do the same thing God had assigned the first time. In your case the same opportunity might never come again. But God is always looking for us to acknowledge our failures and humbly surrender to Him afresh. When we do, He is free to give us another opportunity. But don’t presume upon that. You might not get a second chance. Be faithful in what He asks of you now! A second application would be: don’t wait when God has already spoken. Be readily responsive in your faith and obedience. If we constantly go back to God and ask Him to change the assignment to make it more suitable for us, we will probably miss the opportunity, and we might not get another opportunity. That leads to frustration and despair. Faith and obedience leads to fruitfulness and fulfillment.