Jonah (part IV)

By Odon Bulamba (summary only)

Jonah 3:5

After Jonah gave that message, the Bible says, the people of the town took the Word of God seriously. That message is really important and we must be serious because if we are not serious with this message we will perish. How many times do we take things seriously in our lives? Maybe when it's time for my studies or my exams I can study seriously, I can concentrate seriously on my work but when it's time to pray I will feel it's too late or I'm too tired. We are not motivated to do God’s work.

Those people were really wise because they were serious and the first step to winning our souls or winning the souls of other people is to be serious and to commit ourselves to God’s work. If we want our neighbors to be saved we must first of all be serious and make a decision and a plan. We have to pray for them and make a decision to visit them and then it will be accomplished. I must be serious. If I am not serious, God will never be serious with me.

Those people of Ninevah were serious and they decided to fast. Do we as Christians really make a decision and commit ourselves to it? We have to know if we are really working for God or not. Are we living for God? If so, we must be really serious with this life because this life needs to produce fruit . If our lives don't produce anything, God will make us pay the price for that. I can tell you sincerely that God is sometimes nasty. When He is angry nothing will stop Him from becoming angry. When He punishes nothing will stop him from punishing. When he is unhappy no one will stop Him and no one can push Him to become happy. So we have to remember that everything that we are doing today God will one day say, “this is the end of the story of your life, you must change your way of living, you must change your way of talking, you must change and if you don't want to change it by yourself I will change it by force”. When God changes things by force that is the time the person starts to pray to fast and God will try to be a little bit far and observe and you will go through problems to the point that you will start to regret and say why did I do whatever it was.

Look at the example of Job; that man was really quiet. He didn't have any problem with God but because God wanted to prove to the world that even his servant can be allowed to go through suffering, he allowed Job to go through that. Job suffered for many years, he lost everything that he had, everything except his life. If he was really handsome he lost that beauty, if he was really rich he became poor, if Job was healthy that time he became sick. This means that our lives are not ours, our time is not our time, your activities are not yours. Remember, there is a God who lives in you and He controls your life, He controls your steps, your activities. If you forget that he controls you, you will go far away from His will and during that time he will punish you.

So those people came to God by fasting and then God accepted them. In verse eight it says, every person was supposed to pray to God with all his strength. Everybody was pushed and was asked to change their actions to good actions, to become people who will really please God.

These people decided to pray. They were serious and knew this was the time for praying, this was the time for forgiveness, this was the time for action. And to take action we must first of all confess, to repent of our sins and then to fast. Then we have to make a decision so that with all our strength we can pray.

So what does praying with strength mean or with all your force, what does that mean? With concentration, that's all. In the Bible, it says that we have to forget about what's going on around us. You have to focus your eyes on God and say, “here I am and my problem is this, this and that”. And when you are telling God your problems you must feel in your heart there is something. But if you are not concentrating on what you are doing at the time, God will not really listen to your prayer. If you say, “God, I stick on this, I concentrate on my prayer and if you are not responding to me now, you will see me again tomorrow and the day after tomorrow until the day that you respond” and you will see God respond.

But the thing that we don't have is courage. I can make the decision to pray but when it's time to pray I will say that I will pray later after TV or a movie but after that maybe something else will come and I will do something else and then I will decide to pray tomorrow instead.

We have to concentrate and when we concentrate on our prayers we have to make sure God is not far. The Bible says that God is really close to us and he's not far from us so the concentration now will make us to say, “God I am here and I'm here not for myself but for You. I'm here because I want You to listen to my voice. I'm here because I am crossing a situation which is really, really hard for me and I'm going into trouble and I need your support and help. I need your participation in my life and I need God your presence in my prayer”. Then tell God your problem.

Cry to God when you are crossing problem. Cry to God because of the souls that appear in front of you. Cry to God for the salvation of those people in front of you. Pray to God for any personal problem in your family, pray to God because of the personal problems in this world and God will listen.

Churches are facing a load of problems but do we really pray to God for those problems? We don't have time or the opportunity to cry in front of God or the opportunity to think about God's love for others or the opportunity to think about how Jesus was crucified because of us. We don't even have time to think about redemption and we think that's normal. We have to be serious and think about our lives and commit our lives between God's hands.

SUMMARY

- We must be serious with Word of God and with our lives
- We must make a decision for God and stick to it
- Our lives belong to God
- Pray with all your strength = concentratration

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