Christmas and Jonah and the Big Fish

“Salvation is of the Lord.”  (Jonah 2:9)

This Christmas,   Jesus is commanding us to follow Him.  To follow His orders. Jonah and the whale’s story focus on salvation.  This Christmas the best gift you can ever give to your friend is the gift of salvation.   And this is the right time.

You may have no riches and material things to give,  but you have the abundance of God’s grace that you can give.   Material things like toys and clothes and foods  and even money are temporary and can be destroyed.  Gifts bought on malls and stores and even imported ones are sometimes fake and did not pass quality assurance.  But the Gospel of Christ and the Bible is genuine,eternal and lasts forever.  It will make man a follower of Christ.  Tell  your families, friends, officemates, neighbours, those in prison and hospital that following the life of Christ is the best  and the happiest  gift they can receive!

Take a glance and consider the life of Jonah.  Jonah’s life was full of lessons.  Jonah disobeyed God.  He ran away from God.  Instead of obeying God’s order to preach the Gospel in Nineveh, he went to Tarshish.  Because of Jonah’s disobedience,  God sent a violent storm!   In our lives, sometimes  God will send storms if we disobey Him!  The storms may be in whatever form like illness, accident, financial difficulty, broken relationship, loss of job, or loss of life.

The storms of our life will pass away because God has prepared it.  God knows how ,  when and why to start and stop the storms!    In the Bible it was said that the  “now the Lord HAD PREPARED a great fish.” (Jonah 1:17).    Meaning, God had prepared our  lives. God knows what will happen to us even to Jonah.  The whole of our life was already a finished plan God had prepared, a master piece.  God created everything , from the weather to the  whale to the forgiveness of Jonah’s disobedience to Jonah’s success of making the Ninevites repent and believe God. God is in control to carry out to accomplish His plan to save us when we are troubled.

We must share the Gospel of Jonah to others.  We must not disregard this and assume we knew better than God.  Jonah though stubborn and always complaining, yet, still God extends His loving arm of mercy and forgiveness that extends beyond all people on earth.

This year’s Christmas may be the appropriate and right time for you to change. God is always telling and reminding us to do right things.   Remember,  God wants you to be an obedient son and to be saved!   The only problem of gift giving is your defying self.  Will you accept His gift? 

(From Andrew's Sermon and Pastor John Abet F. Falcunitin during Baptist Men’s Sunday School )