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Luke 12:20-21 - "But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?' 21 "So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God." NASU
When you start reading in verse 17 it is easy to see what this man's problem was: vss.17-19 - What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?' 18 "Then he said, 'This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19'And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry."' God called this man a fool because of his attitude towards life. This farmer's attitude was all about getting or amassing a fortune in this life. He saw the winner in life as the one who acquired the most stuff before you died. He was consumed with the here and now. He was all about building bigger barns so he could store more goods. He is not the only person who thinks this way. I am sure you probably know someone who is just like this self-centered man. His world revolved around himself and all that he could gain and because of this God called him a fool. I believe God called him a fool because of his attitude towards God. In verse 19 he said this: I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry."' God is not mentioned. This man was the center of his universe. He was financially rich (had many goods laid up for many years to come) but he was spiritually bankrupt. He didn't have years to come. He had hours and then his life was going to be over for him. I don't want to be misunderstood with this Pump Up. It is not a "sin" to be wealthy. There isn't anything wrong with working hard to acquire wealth. Jesus never said this rich man was a sinner because he had money. He said he was a fool because he had money but didn't have a relationship with God.
Work as hard as you want and a mass the largest fortune you can but while you are doing that remember God is the one you do not want to exclude from your life. I believe God called him a fool because of his attitude towards death. He thought he had many years to live but he didn't. He was going to die that night. Let's be honest! We don't know how long we have to live. People die all the time from heart attacks or car accidents. The plain truth is we could all die tonight. Don't be called a fool by God because you weren't prepared for death. This man was prepared for life but he wasn't prepared for death. Does anyone have a guarantee that we will be a live tomorrow or next week? The answer is no we don't. At the end of your life will God call you a fool because you were prepared for life but you weren't prepared for death? It doesn't have to play out that way. You can be prepared for both life and death. Make sure that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior and that your sins have been forgiven by God. After Peter preached the first gospel sermon on the day of Pentecost he was asked what they were do and here is what he said: Peter said to them, "Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). When a person repents he changes his mind which brings about a change in his behavior. When one is baptized he is immersed in water which is symbolic of the blood of Christ washing away his sins. It is also symbolic of you being buried with Christ and raised to walk in newness of life. Don't be called a fool by God. Do the right thing today. Think About These: One out of every one person dies. Where you go hereafter, depends on what you go after while here. He wasn't condemned because he was rich. He was condemned because he had no relationship with God. Stay Pumped, Gary A. Serago Minister of God's Word
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Jonah 1 :8 - "What have you done to bring this awful storm down upon us?" they demanded. "Who are you? What is your line of work? What country are you from? What is your nationality?" New Living Translation
This storm was happening because Jonah was rebelling against God's command. Does it make you wonder like it does me? Why would Jonah disobey? Why wouldn't he just go to Nineveh and preach like he was asked? Seriously, he is a prophet of God. He knows running away is not going to end well for him. Well, no one ever said, "Being a prophet makes you incredibly smart".
I would suggest asking yourself two questions: First, are you running from God or two are you disobeying Him in some other way. If you are not running or disobeying Him then the odds are you may be the victim of an attack from the evil one (to read more about this read Job 1). The devil has used torture and pain against Christian successfully for a lot of years so there is really no good reason for him to stop using these weapons.
Question 2: -"Who are you? The Lord knows I want to give you a funny answer here but I won't. The Correct Answer - "A man that doesn't want to listen to God." Question 3 - What is your line of work? I am a preacher/prophet or at least I am supposed to be. Question 4 - What country are you from? I am from Israel. Question 5 - What is your nationality?" I am Hebrew. Why are they asking Jonah all of these questions? I believe they are trying to figure out who his god is. One must remember there were a lot of local and national deities and I believe they want to know which god has caused this so that they could appease him or her. Jonah tells them in verse 10 that he is running away from his God. It says the sailors were "terrified" when they heard this and asked him "How could you do this?" Some translations ask "Why have you done this?" Why do we humans violate God's commands on a regular basis? May be we are more like Jonah that we care to admit. What are we going to do? Chapter two verse one says, "Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from inside the fish." The best advice I can give you is to pray to the LORD and ask for His help. What have you done? It may be the only thing you have done is confessed Jesus to be your LORD and Savior and because of your faith the evil one is bringing the hammer down on you. Don't worry, be happy, everything is going to turn out ok for the believers. Notice what God is going to do for those who remain faithful and are permitted to enter in to God's place of rest (Heaven). Rev 21:4 - And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away." NKJV Think About These: To succeed in life you must be easy to start and hard to stop. The person who does things that count doesn’t stop and count them. Stay Pumped, Gary A. Serago Minister of God's Word Jonah 2:1-2 - Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish, saying, “I called out to the LORD, out of my distress, and He answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and You heard my voice….” ESV
While trying desperately to escape doing the will of God Jonah finds himself in serious trouble with the LORD. What does God do? He sends a mighty wind on the sea and the ship, and sailors are in trouble. They are in way over their head, and they are seasoned sailors. There are times in our life when we may be like Jonah. We are on the run. We know there are things in our life God wants us to do and we refuse.
Jesus said in Luke 17:32 - "Remember Lot's wife." When was the last time you remembered Lot's wife? If you were to think about her what would your thoughts be? That she disobeyed a very easy command found in Gen. 19:17 - …"Do not look behind you,…". What did the text mean when it said she looked back? The Hebrew word for "looked" used here is "nabat" (naw-bat'); it means to scan, i.e. look intently at; by implication, to regard with pleasure, favor or care.[i] Lot's wife was used for an example that you can be freed from a life of sin but look back at it with thoughts of pleasure. She wanted to return and when she looked back disobeying the angelic command she turned into a pillar of salt. The Israelites looked back to Egypt and saw their enslavement as something that wasn't so bad. When in reality it was horrible. Have we ever looked back to our life of sinfulness and thought "Oh, it wasn't really that bad." Do yourself a favor and don't look back on your past and think it wasn't that bad. Remember this; it was bad enough to put Jesus on the cross. Rom. 5:8 - But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Did you notice Paul said we were sinners when Christ died for us. We didn't have our life all together.
What are you going to do? My recommendation is to do what Jonah did and that is he prayed and asked God for help. We must never forget that God is more gracious than we are and even though we have disobeyed Him. He will do right by us because of His gracious nature. Think About This: Forgiveness doesn't exonerate the violator. Forgiveness liberates the victim. It's a gift you give yourself. Stay Pumped, Gary A. Serago Minister of God's Word [i] (Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright © 1994, 2003 Biblesoft, Inc. and International Bible Translators, Inc.) Jonah 1:1-3 - The word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying, 2 "Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me." 3 But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. NASU
He knows the people of Gath-hepher and I would say he became comfortable with his lifestyle there. The problem for Jonah comes when God wants him to leave his comfortable surroundings and go to Nineveh. God's Word doesn't always coincide with our Comfort Zone.
So what road, lane, avenue or freeway is enticing you to start down and get further away from God? There is always an avenue that will take you in the wrong direction. I like to watch the FBI shows that are on TV and when they go to arrest someone and he takes off they always shout "we've got a runner". Well, Jonah is a "runner". He is trying to run away from God. Jonah went down to Joppa and then down into the hull of the ship. He would soon find out that it is impossible to run from God when there is something He wants you to accomplish for Him. What is it that God wants you to accomplish?
Jonah knows this storm has come because he is running from God. He even tells them how to make the storm stop. He says to them pick me up and throw me overboard. The men don't want to do that because they are afraid that their god would hold them accountable for this man's blood. They cared more for Jonah than Jonah did for them or the people in Nineveh.
Jonah was a runner and he is soon going to find out you can't out run God. Don't be a runner as in a person who runs away from God. Be the type of runner that runs toward God. You will most likely be amazed at what exciting adventure God has in store for you. Many times you will have to leave your comfort zone. Are you prepared to leave your comfort zone for an exciting adventure with God? Think About These: God is like oxygen. You can't see Him but you need Him to survive. When God puts something on your heart that means it is on His heart also. Faith isn't a feeling. It's a choice to trust God even when the road ahead seems uncertain. Stay Pumped, Gary A. Serago Minister of God's Word Matt. 26:56- "But all this has taken place to fulfill the Scriptures of the prophets."Then all the disciples left Him and fled." NASU
This reminds me of the old saying when you go to a friend in time of need to ask for a favor and he says, "I'd love to help you out, which way did you come in?" One of the main differences is Jesus knew His betrayal was coming and He even knew the ones going to betray Him. He asked Judas, "Are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?" He not only knew who would betray Him He knew how it was going to be done. He told Peter before the rooster crows you will have denied Me three times (Matt.26:34). We know from reading the gospels Peter will do exactly as Jesus informed him.
First, a Christian remembers that we are all sinners and therefore, we all make mistakes. You may also want to remember this passage of scripture: Luke 22:3-4 - And Satan entered into Judas who was called Iscariot, belonging to the number of the twelve. 4 And he went away and discussed with the chief priests and officers how he might betray Him to them. The word "satan" means adversary or one who is against what you are for and the devil is the one who is against what God is for. The devil enters into Judas and then we see Judas begin his betrayal of Jesus. The person who betrays you likewise may have had the devil enter into them and this person then becomes an adversary or one who is against you. Second, remember that God is sympathetic and He cares about what happens to you. He knows you are hurting and He will send relief, but you will have to be patient and wait for it to arrive. 1 Peter 5:6-8 - Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, 7 casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. 8 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. The devil may have devoured your friend and what will the devil do next? He will get your friend to betray you exactly like he got Judas to betray Jesus. Third, don't betray or desert your friends. You didn't like it done to you so practice the golden rule and do to others what you want them to do to you. The best way to counter betrayal is by being a loyal friend. A friend is one who walks in when everyone else is walking out on you. Be the friend you want to have in your own life. This is how a Christian would handle being betrayed or deserted by a friend. Think About These: "A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships." - Helen Keller Some people may still have their first dollar, but the man who is really wealthy still has his first friend Stay Pumped, Gary A. Serago Minister of God's Word |
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