WEDNESDAY, August 13th, 2008

Hello Everyone! See You In Church TONIGHT!!!!!!

A Few Thoughts From Yesterday:
Jake: Don't forget to tell us how the passage applies to you! :)
Kacey: I am glad you are on here! I am praying for your Dad! Call me and tell me how he is doing... or just tell me at church tonight!
Jeff: Thanks for being faithful in your devotions! I will bring your charger tonight!
Michael: I Love That Movie! In Fact! We should all get together and watch it at church whenever we finish Jonah!! That would be fun!
Lucy: YOUR BACK!!!!! YEAH! We missed you Sunday!
Bethany: Are you coming to church tonight? What is up with the "one sentance" :) J/K!!
Rachel: yes, you beat me! It was a late night with Will!!!!
Amanda: Those are wise words... the Bible teaches us that whenever we hang out with the wicked, then we become wicked. Most of the time, we must choose to find new friends, instead of letting the bad ones pull us down. :) See you tonight!
Mallory: I AM SO THANKFUL FOR YOU AND YOUR INVOLVEMENT!!! Great job on the devos! See you tonight?
Ryan: That is interesting that many people could not swim back then... I believe it!
Jon: Do you like sea food? My wife HATES it! I like it!

Lets Continue With this great story of Jonah

Jonah 2:1-10

1 Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the fish’s belly.
2 And he said: “ I cried out to the LORD because of my affliction, And He answered me. “ Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, And You heard my voice.
3 For You cast me into the deep, Into the heart of the seas, And the floods surrounded me; All Your billows and Your waves passed over me.
4 Then I said, ‘I have been cast out of Your sight; Yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.’
5 The waters surrounded me, even to my soul; The deep closed around me; Weeds were wrapped around my head.
6 I went down to the moorings of the mountains; The earth with its bars closed behind me forever; Yet You have brought up my life from the pit, O LORD, my God.
7 “ When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the LORD; And my prayer went up to You, Into Your holy temple.
8 “ Those who regard worthless idols Forsake their own Mercy.
9 But I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay what I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD.”
10 So the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

This passage is wonderful! We know from yesterdays passage that Jonah was cast out of the boat and swallowed by a whale. We also know that Jonah was in this whale for three days. At some point during that time Jonah woke up from being unconcience and He prayed the prayer written in this chapter.

To help you understand his prayer, I bolded some of the most profound statements, and I colored one phrase orange. Lets go through this prayer and understand what Jonah was talking about.

Verse 1 teels us, THEN Jonah prayed to God from the fishes belly. What is God going to have to do in your life and my life before we will turn to Him? Would we have to write... "and Pastor Lee went through the horrible consequences, and THEN he Prayed. Maybe we should just turn to God before He turns on His righeous judgments!

Then from verses 2-9 we see a wonderful prayer of Repentance:

First Jonah says: When I cried, God listened. What a wonderful truth to know that whenever we cry out to God He will listen to us too!
Jonah acknowledges that he is in this horrible situation because of the consequences of his sin.
In verse 4 we see that Jonah acknowledges that he has been cast out of the sight of God because of his sin. Our God is holy and can not take part in sin, when we are full of sin, we no longer have true fellowship with Him.

Verse 8 is INCREDIBLE!!! Think about this... Jonah is saying that those who worship idols are basically throwing away the mercy that God wants to give them... We do not worship statues, but we worship many other things in our life.. when we put things before God in our lives they become idols...

Do you put things before your devotions? Do you put things before church? If you do, then you are throwing away the mercy that God wants to pour on you. That is such a powerful verse!!!

In verse 9 Jonah says: Salvation is of the Lord!!!!!!
We know that to be true, for He has given us Salvation!!!

And God gave Jonah salvation as well, God told that Whale to "throw up" Jonah!! Wow! That is what God thinnks of Sin... It makes Him want to throw up!! :) Just like all the teens on the way to camp! :)

There are so many lessons on here! Make sure that you come one tomorrow! I am going to show you some really cool stuff about Jonah!! :)

Love you all! See you in church tonight!!

Pastor Lee