Your Obedience To God Can Transform A Heart
And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not. Jonah 3:1-10
Everyone knows Jonah for having been swallowed by a large fish because he had run away from the Lord. He disobeyed God’s command to go to Nineveh and preach repentance so that the city would not be destroyed due to its wickedness. According to a certain Jewish perspective, Jonah was an upright man, for you cannot be God’s prophet if you lived a sinful life. So why did Jonah disobey? For some reason, Jonah was afraid to see the people of Nineveh repent upon hearing his message because his own people, the Israelites, were stubborn and wouldn’t listen to God. In short, Jonah was running away from God and willing to be condemned in exchange for his fellow men not looking bad before God when the people of Nineveh repented.
Like Jonah, we all have our reasons for disobeying God. But also like Jonah, our reasons do not matter. We will suffer the consequences if we disobey. Jonah too suffered the consequences of his actions. If God weren’t merciful and loving enough to send Jonah a big fish to swallow him, he could have died from drowning. Many times in our disobedience, like Jonah we find the lovingkindness and mercy of our heavenly Father, Who through Christ Jesus always makes a way out to save us from our foolishness.
His story reminds all the believers of Christ that no man (except for Jesus) is perfect, and everyone makes mistakes, as Jonah did. But what’s special in Jonah’s story is that we see a God Who gives second chances and Who always offers a way to lead us to the right path. In Jonah 3:1-10, we read that God spoke to Jonah a second time, and Jonah finally obeyed God:
“And the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.”
Your obedience to God is as important as one nation being saved from destruction, as in the story of Jonah. Obedience to God is a choice, and your choice affects not only your life but the lives of others. Jonah decided to finally obey God and preached repentance to the people of Nineveh, which indeed resulted in their repentance. People were changed forever. Likewise, your obedience to God – for instance, confronting a person you hate to set that person free from the lies and oppression of the enemy – can transform a heart even though that may be hard to do.
What is God asking you to do that you have been running away from? Perhaps it’s time to rethink and change your mind with the help of the Holy Spirit so that God’s purpose will come to pass, and someone in your life will have a changed heart forever.
