Being Responsible

Being Responsible

5/13/18

The topic of this article from the title would seem quite simple but this topic is quite the opposite and one that needs to be recognized as such because it defines many aspects of our lives.  Responsibility is a great achievement if one completes the task at hand in a timely manner but is a hideous account if one is responsible for devastation. It is interesting to see how people take the responsibility of owning up to issues when things go bad but what many do not realize is that when we accept the responsibility for our wrongdoings it is actually the first step in restoration and all around calmness.  God wants us to be restored and the only way we can complete this glorious benefit is obtaining it from Him.  Faith in humanity alone is a sinking ship in an ugly storm but if we turn to the One who controls that storm then our issues will disappear.

In writing this series on Jonah I have been blessed in the fact that God has delivered the bulk of the information of the articles to my heart two or three at a time.  But on this specific topic, He did not do such a thing but just gave me the verse and that was it.  I was not concerned about it at all and really did not fret about not knowing what the next topic would be either until I finished Jonah 1:9 and still did not hear anything from Him concerning the next passage.  I continued the day with nothing new in my heart yet was not concerned at all, until the evening hit and I began to become antsy to the point where I could not sit still and enjoy the time with my wife.  The evening finished and it was about ready to complete my evening routine before going to bed and as I was sitting at my desk eating a small bowl of cereal God dropped the title and topic of this article into my heart.  He also expounded on another topic that I have not formally written yet either, which once again confirms that God has His own time for each article to be written and then sent; a pointed project that I could never try to accomplish on my own.

It is this waiting period of mine that reinforces into my heart that I am not in control of what God wants for my life.  I can see how Jonah believed he was doing the correct thing for his life when he took off in the opposite direction after God had given him the message for Nineveh, but in the end God has His own delivery method and timing because we tend to forget that God sees all and knows all at the same time, a part of our existence that we cannot comprehend.  It is like being a person who delivers the weather, one that can be wrong 365 days of the year and still have a wonderful job that pays far more than what I make.  There are just some things that are difficult to predict and then there are those things which we can be fairly sure about, either way we may believe that we know what is going to occur in the future but with God’s sense of humor involved, our limited predictions can be messed up even before they begin.

I pride myself on doing a good job in the medical field and that I am able to provide my patients, physicians, nurses, and pharmacists with reliable and valid results when it comes to blood work.  But there are times that, for whatever reason, the results I provide can be skewed and when I notice such errors I automatically become embarrassed and worried at the same time.  At no point in time do I ever want to provide a false result to anyone and in order for me to do this, I need to make sure that all my results are compatible with life and follow the pattern of treatment of patients.  When such errors occur, very rarely I might add, it is my responsibility to own up to the issue and to correct it as soon as possible and even though I recognize the issue and do something about it, it would place me in the same category as Jonah if I knew that an error was present and did nothing about it.  If I did such an abomination to another then I would be violating the oath I took when I promised to do no harm to those that seek my help.  Sadly, as I have stated before and that God has shown to us as well there are those in the world who do not care enough to stand up for the errors they make and then at some time down the road have to either take responsibility or engage in the blame game, which brings us to the passage of Jonah 1:10-12 and the passage that God wants us to share with us.

So far in this series, we have learned that Jonah has deliberately left God’s command to him and has gone about on his own way hoping to hide from God while doing so, a common misfortune that many humans believe.  Jonah enters a boat and begins his journey in the opposite way but runs into a storm that threatens the boat and everyone on board.  Jonah has admitted to being a Hebrew and one who serves the Almighty God after he had been singled out from the boat crew.  So, now we are at the point where the storm is still raging and the people on the boat are confused and terrified at the same time, a combination that does not sit well with humans.  As in my personal statement in the above paragraph, there are people’s lives and eternal placements at stake here so the setting is of a vital nature and a perfective plan must be carried out.

Jonah 1:10 states as follows: “Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord because he had told them.”  How can someone not be afraid of violent surroundings especially when they do not understand why these violent conditions exist?  One cannot fault the mariners for having such emotions and to be honest, they gave Jonah a fair deal by not getting rid of him immediately after they learned of the truth behind his staging within the boat.  Verse 10 gives us the reason why they should have completed this motion and it is because Jonah came clean with not only who he was but why he was there and what he had done to deserve such hideous weather conditions.  How much guts it took for these men not to take matters into their own hands after finding out that while their gods and fortunes did not warrant any distinctive harmful manner only to find out that the one asleep and not helping with the matters at hand is fast asleep below.  A stark contrast to how our society is today I would have to say.

As the previous verses have explained, the mariners were in search of the source of the storm which means that these men are demonstrating the very type of activity one today would demonstrate during a crisis.  If one is paying attention to their current surroundings and then watch the corresponding reactions to everyone involved it becomes quite clear of where their heart lies and who or what they offer their hearts up to.  The confidence in such deities can be amusing but to those who are dedicated to them take the situation very seriously the only problem with this fact is that unless those people are praying and seeking guidance from God alone, their prayers are falling on laughing ears.  And this example is given to us in the next few verses of this passage. 

Jonah confesses the reason entirely to the men, probably in a condensed version due to the magnitude of the storm, but in any view, he makes his point clear that it is due to his disobedience that the storm rages around them placing them all in danger.  The men must have asked the question about how Jonah could do such a thing in a puzzled manner, for it is clear that even they resourced their own personal gods when times became troubled.  It is obvious that the mariners had obeyed their statutes to their gods and had followed what they had been taught to do, yet while their prayers were being presented to nothing, a man claiming to be one that fears the God of all creation sleeps, justification for such questioning.  Can you now understand why so many people today doubt the sincerity of Christians due to their daily behavior?

Jonah makes no doubt about why the storm is raging around them and tells them exactly what is going on, yet their fear and doubt about his words confound their thinking concerning their next move.  I can imagine how astonished the men were to hear such words of defiance against their own gods and ways of life and to provide such damning evidence for the reason their lives were at stake.  Jonah even takes the next step and tells them what to do in order to calm the storm, he gives very specific instructions to them and he even tells them what will occur after they complete this task.  Again, profound words from an outsider to the crew of the boat for one just do not lightly make a decision to throw someone overboard to “calm the sea” in order to calm the storm above them and the sea underneath them.

It is this type of responsibility or the lack of true responsibility that God wants us to understand about our lives today.  He has charged humanity with a command of complete governess over our dominion and ever since the Garden of Eden we have been playing with this command from God in order to appease our own selfish desires.  God does not and cannot allow our lives to become idle for when they do it is a guarantee that disobedience will rear its ugly head soon afterward.  It is the nature of the Serpent to do such a task for where the lifeblood of the Kingdom of God is not continually flowing and covering us opportunity knocks for the world to enter.  The seemingly simple word “no” to God that Jonah gave after he received his command set off a potentially destructive presence for him and the ones that were unknowingly involved with him as well.  It was this slight word that set into motion a frightful set of warnings that could have cost innocent lives and placed them into their eternal position far too early.

With the actions of the modern-day Church, it is not difficult to understand that we have said the exact same word “no” to God after Jesus gave us His command and to go and teach the gospel to the dying world.  We are currently in the boat with Jonah and the crew of the boat explaining to them why the storm is around us but our words because of our past actions are falling on deaf ears.  Jonah was willing to correct the situation by giving the men the way out by resolving his issue with God yet in all sense of truth, Jonah still had not confessed his disobedience to God the One who he really needed to do.  Jonah stands up for God in this passage and that is what the responsibility of the Church is to be but just as Jonah in these few verses, he stands up to the physical and not the spiritual which gives us a clear reason why the storm continued to rage around them.

Church, we are in disobedience to God and to the command that His Son gave us to do and when we try and justify our sin to the people of the world we shall see NO submission of the said storms around us, only increases.  The storms around us are our own fault for not obeying the command of God way back in the Garden of Eden and because of our lack of obedience to Jesus’ command to His followers as well.  If Jonah had obeyed God in the first place none of the problems that those men faced would have ever occurred, yet even in our own selfish ways and sinful mannerisms God still gives us an opportunity to repent and to make things right with Him.  Whether or not we figure things out quickly or not is up to us for we can skip the belly ride if we wish or we can go through the severe awakening that God has to do sometimes to grab our attention.

Jesus knew exactly how difficult a job that His command would be and that is why He gave it to Hid best witnesses, His Church and that is YOU.  As previously stated in an earlier article in this series, the entire Book of Jonah could have been rewritten and ended in a totally different manner if Jonah had just obeyed God in the first place.  To take that statement a bit further, the entire Bible could have been rewritten if Adam and Eve would have simply obeyed God and not allowed sin into the lives of humans.  How many times have we stood before others and emptily proclaimed Christ to them?  I would dare to say the answer would be more times than not which is a sad and pathetic service to the one who has given us life eternally.  But our actions are not new and are not short in lineage for we see even during the life of Jonah that denying God is a common thread that all of us share; ties going back to the Garden of Eden.  We have become so much like the world that we have to be asked if we are different than what others believe, our separation from this world has become a spiritual joke and lie that is not only costing us our eternal positioning but many others’ as well.  The storms are all around us and while we recognize them as our wakeup call we would rather play the martyr than tell others to repent as we have been first commanded.

Oh, how we need to have God burn away the dirt and filth from our hearts so that we may once again be washed in the blood of the Lamb.  We do not need the waters of the physical world to tempt us with its drowning effects we have been designated as overcomers and ones who serve the Almighty God.  Yet, we choose to live in disobedience and thus create an entire avalanche of worries and issues that should be a needless setting all the while lying to those around us who are in desperate need of eternal help.  Our verbal and physical ways of existence and worldly acceptance give us away when troubles occur and are the sole reason why so many that are asking for help during these times of crises do not believe the words coming from our mouths.  God created Israel to be separate from the world and He also asks His Church to follow the same guidelines.

God has stated this next phrase many times in the articles that He has shared with us but it is an important message not only for ourselves but more importantly those who have never heard about God and His Son Jesus.  We need to repent Church, and once again spread the True Gospel of Christ to the dying world and that means to those who are sitting down and playing church as well.  God does not care if you have been raised in church or if you have no clue about who He is; all He wants is to cleanse your heart from this world and to have eternal communion with you.  There is nothing good about this world and it can offer you nothing in the means of life, death grips it on every side and when in this status, that is all it can offer.  Are you a responsible person who truly and purely witnesses and obeys God or are you part of the responsibility party that has produced the storm warnings that we face today?

Church, it is our duty to spread the Gospel of Christ to the world and we cannot complete this mission if we have an alliance with the ones who we are trying to witness.  Yes, we must proclaim who we are and who we serve just as Jonah did in the boat, but we cannot be actively living and promoting the world (sin) at the same time.  We can confess our past but when we do we must be in alignment underneath the blood of Christ in order to be true and viable to the ones who need God.  As we have learned before in this series, being a showboat Christian only makes us a fool to others and liars to God.  Let us come together and repent and return our hearts to God so that we can be true witnesses and win Nineveh (the world) back to God.  When we are not living separate from the world, our responsibility shifts to the side in which Jonah portrayed in the boat because we present ourselves as such we automatically transfer our true responsibility from God to this perverted state of living.  In this case and through this passage, we do not need and we cannot afford to be like Jonah but for many false reasons, we have become just that example.  It is time we turn around and again give our hearts back to God before our storm becomes our judgment.

DLB