Sunday 7 Nov 2021

November 7: Jonah 3:1-10
 
Key Verse: Jonah 3:10
When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.
 
Devotion:
To me, the Old Testament contains so many stories about how people were so quick to forget about God, this chapter is almost a summary of what we are like! When things are good and we are enjoying our lives, we can get carried away with our lives and the content therein rather than where it all came from and who we have to thank for our lives.
 
We sometimes think of the Old Testament as being irrelevant because of the time which has passed between this period in history and now. We think we have changed too much and it does not reflect how we live today. But when we look at this we should be able to relate to it as the way we live in our modern world.
 
If we wanted to walk from one end of a modern-day city to the other, we would take a long time to do so. Our cities themselves may officially be big, but if we take into account the suburbs and surrounding towns and villages which have been encompassed by the cities, we can imagine the size of Nineveh. We can also know what goes on in our cities – some being places which have forgotten about God because they are too focused on being cities instead of being communities.
 
Jonah had the thankless task of going from one end of the city to the other telling them they had forgotten about God and because of this, the city would be destroyed before long. Thankfully, the people remembered where they had come from and how much God had done for them to get to where they were then. They turned back to God who was more than willing to forgive them!
 
Points to Ponder:
Do you have a good life?
 
Do you thank God continually for what you have?