Ego part 2
But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD. Jonah 1:3
In our last post we said that usually an egotistic person will have no room for God, he readily, easily edges Him out. This couldn’t be more clearer in Jonah’s attitude toward to presence of the Lord.
The #2 lesson we learn here in the book of Jonah is – that God desires intimacy with you all the time… In good times, bad times and ugly times. That we need to value his presence in our lives all the time.
The mistakes we make over and over is to take the Holy Spirit or presence of God for granted. He is in us, with us and for us – not sometimes – but all the time. We long for him, ask for him to show up bigtime in our lives – yet, when he finally does, we trample upon him, abuse him misuse him, grieve him, turn and walk away from him by our doubt, sinful and wayward lifestyle. It’s almost like having a one night stand with the Holy Spirit – for lack of better words.
The most important thing we need to understand about the Holy Spirit or the presence of God is that the Holy Spirit is not a thing we can pick up when we want and lay down whenever we want…
1/ He is a person
The second thing we need to remember about him is that we cannot live a life of sin and expect him to hang with us. He can not stand sinful behavior and tendencies…
2/ He is Holy
The third thing we must understand is that he is not only there on Sunday morning in church. So, we can not walk away from him on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday through Saturday… He wants you to cultivate an intimate relationship with him. Stop edging him out of your life…
3/ he desires a relationship with you!
We must understand that without his presence we are nothing. In his presence there is fullness of joy. His presence sets us apart. His presence makes the difference. His presence simplifies ministry. His presence gets the job done…
4/ We can do nothing without him
Finally, we must understand that we cannot run from his presence. It is silly to think we can. David said in Psalm 139:7 Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If David knew this, than Jonah should have known this as well. I think he did! . Ironically, Jonah means “dove,” a symbol for Israel as silly and senseless (Hos. 7:11). I think he is just being silly and senseless to think he could run from the presence of God…
5/ don’t be senseless and silly about the Holy Spirit.
Conclusion
In our introduction to this series, we said that everything about Jonah began to go down when he decided to edge God out of his life and run from him. The words “Went down” (twice in this verse; see also v. 5; 2:6) is also a euphemism for death (e.g., Gen. 37:35). The suggestion is that each step away from the presence of God is one step closer to “going down” to death. That’s when our churches grow dull and lose their impact and power. That’s when our witness fall flat and our messages, even though decorated with creativity, leaves people just entertained without any real change. Because we think we can get things done in our own strength. My friends, we need the power of God more than ever before!
Walter Bright 
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I like that you say, “we must understand that we cannot run from his presence. It is silly to think we can.” I often hear people say that they don’t subscribe to God anymore. So this means that they somehow blind themselves to the love of God, or what?
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Silly, isn’t it? Thanks for the comment!
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Thank you for another amazing post! God Bless 🙂
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thank you very much!
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you very welcome 🙂
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