Daily Bible Reading - May 2, 2018

Verse

Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish’s belly, and said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.  –Jonah 2: 1 – 2

Reflection

Jonah cried out to God from the belly of the whale. What a place for a prayer meeting!  This should teach us that there is not place on earth where we cannot or should not pray to God.  There is not situation we can be in where he will be unable to hear us and deliver us.  Note that the Hebrew for “hell” can also be rendered “grave” in many cases.  It was as if Jonah was dead and gone and the fish’s belly was his tomb, but God heard him and brought him back.

Prayer

O God, it is always better to follow you than to run from your will.  But even if, like Jonah, I am in great trouble due to my wanderings, I know that you will hear the cry of the truly penitent heart.  we are all often in need of undeserved deliverance.  As hymn writer and author of Rock of Ages Augustus Toplady put it, I am a “debtor to mercy alone.”

United in Love

The only way that believers can be united is when their bond is rooted in the love of God.  The love of God that will help us remove our resentment and hatred towards one another.  Instead of trying to gain an upper hand on the next person, we look out for one another.  Instead of causing strife, over one another’s imperfections, we become patient with one another.  These things cannot be done in our own power.  That is we have the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, to help us love one another in a way that reflects God and who He really is.

We should let unity be our driving force for loving one another.  When we as Christians are united, we become unstoppable as we move to spread the love of God across the world.  We cannot do it as individuals.  Christianity is not a life of isolation.  We cannot thrive on our own.  We have to be joined together.  That is what God intended – for all of us to be united in love.  When the world sees us genuinely looking out for one another as we worship God, they will be moved to join in.

In the times of the apostles, in Acts, love was shared among the believers and it drew in more new converts with every day that passed.  They grew in multitudes and the love among them grew.  As they grew, the gospel reached the world with a great speed.  Even when the early church was scattered, they continued to support each other from a distance.

We are called to be one – One in God.  One in the faith.  This cannot be achieved if we do not walk in love.  Love helps us reach out to one another.  We aren’t meant to be looking out for our selfish interests.  We have to see looking out for one another as an honorable thing to do – because it really is.  There is nothing greater than walking in the love of God.

Nothing at all.