God of a Second Chance!

We serve a God of second Chances. I’ve been hearing this phrase a lot lately. Its been tweeted and facebooked a lot. I believe there is an organization about it. As I have been going over this idea that we serve a God of second chances…its made me think. I taught this past Sunday on this idea out of the book of Jonah. Jonah is an interesting character. As children this is one of those stories that we read about and think..”oh he was in a whale”. Well, there are several themes in this book that we often and I stress often forget.

The book opens with Jonah running away from God. Most of us have ran away from God. Jonah, specifically ran from his calling. God called him to go to Ninevah and preach against it. Jonah, a prophet of God thought he could RUN AWAY from God. This is hilarious. We can NEVER run away from God. He is everywhere and we can’t escape that fact. Because of his disobedience, it caused him to be in a world of trouble. A storm came, threatened the boat he was on, and forced the other men to throw him off the boat. Jonah then finds himself in the stomach of a great fish or whale. Jonah then prays inside the fish. This is an interesting time for a prayer meeting? That’s just like Christians today. Pray when we need God to deliver us. The great thing is that we serve a God that listens to our prayers and answers us. In HIS way and in HIS TIMING.
Best verse in the book comes from Jonah 3:1-3…The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time and he responded. That’s grace! That’s how and why we serve a God of Second Chances. Jonah didn’t want to go to Ninevah. He hated the people there. Jonah knew that if he went to Ninevah, did what the Lord told him to, that God would have mercy on them and not bring destruction. He was right. The Lord ended up not bringing the destruction to them. God was concerned about them. Jonah was angry and the book ends with the Lord asking him a question. We don’t know Jonah’s response. I believe we don’t know because it allows us to make a response to the book.

Are we going to be people of Grace. Grace has been extended to us. Who can you extend grace to?

Food for thought.