What is Your God Like?

Jonah 1:5

               Our God is Sovereign.  We can learn much from the book of Jonah about our God.  He controls the wind :4, "...the LORD sent out a great wind into the sea..."  He controls the storms :4, "...there was a mighty tempest in the sea...,"  He even controls the inhabitants of the sea :17, "Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah...  He does as He pleases :14, "...for thou, O LORD, hast done as it pleased thee.  

               God's ways are above our ways.  See Isa.55:9, "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. Contrary to what we might expect, humanly speaking, He is even in our adversities of life.  See Jonah in the belly of the whale 2:3, "For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me."  He is in our successes and failures.  See Jonah 3:4-10 for the "prophet's success" as he finally obeyed the Lord and preached to Nineveh.  We don't always understand the Lord's works.  See Jonah 4:7, 8 "But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.  And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live."

               This we know, our God is merciful.  He spared the penitent Ninevites 3:6-10, "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.  O that President Trump would follow this king’s example and call our nation to repentance!  Our God is One of a second chance.  I do not mean that men will be given a second chance to be saved after they have died.  I mean that in His mercy He often gives a second chance to His disobedient people that they might turn and obey His command, just as He gave Jonah a second chance.

               Where are you?  Are you being obedient, or must He chastise you to bring you to obedience, and will He be merciful to you to give you a second chance?