Daily Devotionals
August 26, 2020
Our Peachtree Church email devotionals this week, August 24-28, will all be written by Peachtree’s Music Ministry Staff.
The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.
Jonah 1:1–3
Jonah is a key example of hard lessons that are intertwined with God’s grace and mercy. God gives clear direction to Jonah, but Jonah rebels and flees to Tarshish. He is thrown overboard by the sailors in an attempt to appease God’s wrath through the deadly waves that threaten to capsize their ship. And noble as it may have seemed, Jonah’s request to be abandoned in the Mediterranean Sea was not to save the sailors. Instead, it was an opportunity for him to die. He would rather have died at sea than to see the Lord extend grace and mercy to his Ninevite enemies. Talk about pride!
But then comes verse 17: “Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah. . .”
“Provided.” God responds to Jonah’s pride and selfishness with grace and love and “provides” rescue for him. What follows is a three-day, three-night lesson in humility in dank, submarine, and solitary confinement. Tim Keller observes, “Pride is the carbon-monoxide of sin. It silently and slowly kills you without you even knowing.”
Our God is a God of great compassion and mercy, even when we make decisions that create a path of “learning the hard way.” He’ is with us during those moments of painful spiritual growth and maturation. Those harder lessons can lead to one of two outcomes:
For Reflection
What lessons can we learn from Jonah’s pride?
In a time of political and social division, are we, in our interactions with others (face-to-face, social media, etc.), choosing pride or choosing humility?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, help us to be ambassadors of Your Gospel, not ambassadors of our own gospels. Help us to lay down our pride at the foot of Your cross: to listen to others, to love others, and to show compassion and empathy. I pray that we might become a reflection of Your radiant light in what seems to be very dark time right now. Help me to model the fruit of Your Spirit in all I say and do. In the name of the Father, and the Son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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