{"id":7659,"date":"2021-07-31T17:28:41","date_gmt":"2021-07-31T22:28:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/?p=7659"},"modified":"2021-07-31T17:28:41","modified_gmt":"2021-07-31T22:28:41","slug":"devotional-on-jonah-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-jonah-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Jonah"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 2048px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-U6Fsv9W0k1A\/YQRE1i4HKbI\/AAAAAAABK2E\/4hfhRlJlvggJuACtTTNbBI8iwSHLDZ3qwCPcBGAsYHg\/s2048\/P8209027.JPG\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1536\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2013 &#8211; Shenandoah National Park, VA &#8211; Skyline Drive<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nWhy Jonah Runs<br \/>\nJonah 4: I knew you were sheer grace and mercy.<br \/>\nJonah runs because he understands what God&#8217;s all about and because his heart doesn\u2019t beat with God\u2019s heart.  He knows that in spite of the message of condemnation and destruction the Lord gives him to preach that the very reason he\u2019s sent to Nineveh is that God doesn\u2019t want to destroy that city at all.  Here are the things Jonah knows about God: his attitude toward lost people is one of grace; he delights in being merciful, he&#8217;s not easily angered; and he&#8217;s rich in love toward the lost.  Jonah also knows that when it comes to judgment God always stands ready to change his mind.  Since Jonah knows these things about God and since he&#8217;s so out of sync with God, he\u2019d rather be dead than be instrumental in God\u2019s extending mercy to his enemies.  Also, Jonah knows that many of his countrymen agree with him.  Once people find out that Jonah went to Nineveh to warn them and that he\u2019s instrumental in God\u2019s deciding not to destroy them his life won\u2019t be worth a plug nickel.  It\u2019s a miserable thing to be filled with hate and to be used as an instrument of God\u2019s love.  I see here that God loves the lost to the point that he&#8217;ll do almost anything to reach them.  If he has to use a hard-hearted prophet and a big fish to do it, then that\u2019s what he\u2019ll do.  If I\u2019m going to be a partner with God in what he\u2019s doing in this world, I\u2019m going to have to allow him to love people with that kind of abandon through me.<br \/>\nTake Away: The Lord loves the lost to the point that he&#8217;ll do almost anything to reach them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why Jonah Runs Jonah 4: I knew you were sheer grace and mercy. Jonah runs because he understands what God&#8217;s all about and because his heart doesn\u2019t beat with God\u2019s heart. He knows that in spite of the message of condemnation and destruction the Lord gives him to preach that the very reason he\u2019s sent [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1508,6,7],"tags":[135,473,518,713],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7659"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7659"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15435,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7659\/revisions\/15435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}