What Are You Doing?

The Lord spoke his word to Jonah son of Amittai: “Get up, go to the great city of Nineveh, and preach against it, because I see the evil things they do.” But Jonah got up to run away from the Lord by going to Tarshish. He went to the city of Joppa, where he found a ship that was going to the city of Tarshish. Jonah paid for the trip and went aboard, planning to go to Tarshish to run away from the Lord. - Jonah 1:1-3 (NCV)

I've read this portion of scripture many times in the past but this time these first three verses in the book of Jonah really stuck with me. How often do we react just like Jonah? God will tell us to do something specifically and instead we go in the complete opposite direction. I've been here many times in my life and I'm not 100% sure that I'm not here again, but I trust that God will work that out as I open myself up to it. Now some of you are saying, "Well I never actually heard an audible voice tell me not to do this..." but we forget that God uses anything or anyone to get our attention. Maybe He's put you on someone's heart and that person has tried to reach out to you but you reject their advice. Or maybe you've even come across a scripture that you just know is prompting you to take action, but you refuse. This is exactly what Jonah did. 

There are times in our lives where we know God has told us to do something or NOT do something but we do the complete opposite of His instructions. We try to stay in the gray areas making statements like, "the Bible doesn't specifically say NOT to ____________ (fill in the blank)", so we go right on justifying our own behavior. When are we going to learn that we're not fooling anyone but ourselves? The issue here is we don't want to be held accountable for anything so we lie to ourselves to appease our own conscience; "I'm not hurting anyone, but we plan on getting married, making-out doesn't always lead to sex, it's my life and nobody else's business what I do with it, I buy this magazine for the articles, viewing porn is normal and something everyone does." This list of lies could quite literally go on and on and these are just a few of the justifying statements I've heard and even used myself at one time.

The bottom line here is not to tell you what's right or what's wrong because I'm a firm believer that if you are honestly trying to follow God and studying the Bible then HE will show you that. The purpose here it for your to stop and think and ask yourself; is there anything that God been trying to show me? Stop and think about that and even ask Him to help you see things as He sees them. If you take the time to stop and really examine your life (2 Corinthians 13:5) and line it up to what the Bible says I believe you'll get your answer. 

Take Care & God Bless,

-E