I worship the LORD God of heaven

• Home

 If you want to receive an email alert when a new message is posted, send an email to Contact@MyDailyDevotion.ORG              Follow us :    

 “Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,  “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD. But the LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up.”   [Jonah 1:1-5]

---

 I worship the LORD God of heaven

God told Jonah to preach to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria. Jonah wasn’t afraid of failure; he we afraid he would succeed. He was afraid that his hated enemies might repent and be spared. So Jonah boarded a ship heading the opposite direction.
The Lord intervened and made a strong wind blow, and such a bad storm came up that the ship was about to be broken to pieces. The sailors were frightened, and they all started praying to their gods. They even threw the ship's cargo overboard to make the ship lighter.

All this time, Jonah was down below deck, sound asleep. The ship's captain went to him and said, "How can you sleep at a time like this? Get up and pray to your God! Maybe he will have pity on us and keep us from drowning." Jonah answered, "I'm a Hebrew, and I worship the LORD God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land."  When the sailors heard this, they were frightened, because Jonah had already told them he was running from the LORD.

When the terrified sailors asked what they should do in the storm Jonah caused, Jonah could have said, “Turn the ship around.” Instead, he chose to die. But he didn’t offer to jump into the ocean. He told the sailors to throw him in, so they would be guilty of his death.

The pagan sailors were more pious than Jonah, the prophet of God. They did not want to be judged for sin. And, unlike Jonah, the sailors worshipped God when they saw his anger appeased.
Jonah typified the people of ancient Israel who were so focused on their national identity that they wanted to see their neighbors destroyed—never mind that God wanted to spare them. May this never be our attitude.  May our prejudices never cause us to sit in judgment of who should be saved and who should be destroyed.


"Throw me into the sea, and it will calm down"

 Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?” For the sea grew more and more tempestuous.  He said to them, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.”   [Jonah 1:11-12]  

Jonah boarded a ship heading the opposite direction