Stumbling Toward Obedience
Learning from Jonah's Failure to Love God and the People He Came to Save
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Obedience to the Great Commission is still God’s expectation for His people. The command is clear, and God has exempted no one from its authority. The proclamation of the gospel message from one person to another is the divine call upon every servant of Jesus Christ, professional or layman. Far excelling social change, political action, or behavioral modification (all of which may have their place), obedience to the Great Commission is the way that the kingdom of God comes, changing individuals, families, neighborhoods, societies, cultures and nations by the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
It is the mark of every genuine child of God that he sincerely desires to live in consistent obedience, but he also stumbles in many ways and on many fronts. Jonah’s testimony will greatly help all who sincerely desire to cling tightly to Christ and His commands. “If anyone loves Me he will keep My word.” These are the words of our Lord Jesus.
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About the Book
Jesus demonstrated complete submission to the Father’s will to the point of His confident assertion, “I always do those things that please My Father” (John 8:29). He gave Himself in humility at Calvary to satisfy God’s wrath against all sin, as well as all sinners, and declared from the cross, “It is finished.” He then experienced death but rose in victory over death, thus proving His claims to divinity and giving to all His spiritual descendants resurrection power for daily living.
So what is to be our response to all Christ Jesus is and all that He has suffered and accomplished on our behalf? What should be our life’s focus, our objective, our agenda, and our passion? Obedience to the things our Lord and Savior has commanded. Obedience is our duty, to be sure, but it is more than that. It is the way we express our thanksgiving for what Christ has done for us. It is gratefulness lived out on a daily basis. This kind of living involves a consistent orientation toward laying aside personal or selfish desires and agendas that bring us temporal gratification. Instead, we embrace what Jesus Christ tells us to do: to proclaim the gospel of hope to those who know it not. This is the highest expression of gratefulness from a life made new by the living Lord.
Your culture, your communities, your friends, your co-workers, and your family members need to hear a word from God. You and I are the delivery persons for God’s message. We are the spokespersons for the gospel of Jesus Christ! We are the ones to whom God has said, “Arise, go to Nineveh.” Our Nineveh, dear people of God, is the lost people around us.
About the Author
Being a vocational pastor and church planter, a missionary and an initiator and founder of overseas Bible institutes, David Hawkins lives life with a deep and abiding concern for the people of God. David’s heart is that people who name the name of Christ would place their energies in life toward God’s will and His purposes for them on earth, becoming personally engaged in helping to fulfill the Great Commission.
David and Vickie Hawkins are the parents of three grown, married children who serve Christ with their spouses in their respective contexts. They have been blessed with seven amazing grandchildren and joyfully say of their season of life, “God saved the best for last.”