EXPECTATIONS

EXPECTATIONS 

Psalm 27:8  When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek. 

If you are looking to meet with God, it is God who has called you to embark on that noble adventure! Isaiah 55:6  “Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:”  This is His personal invitation to you! 

Romans 3:11 States “There is none that seeks after God.” 

On our own, we’re just not looking for the True God of the Bible.  If we were completely honest, most of us are  looking for the “god of our own understanding”, one that is made in our own image – he/she agrees with what we think “god” should be like.    Most of us would have to admit the God of the Bible is not our ideal of who “god” should be.  (Shouldn’t a god be easier to understand????)    

But the God of the Bible desires to speak with us.  If you are HERE, He has sent out an invitation to you, personally!   If He has invited you,  I believe you can come with certain expectations:

·       Expect that God is already there,  waiting for you.

•        Expect to hear from Him

•        Expect Him to want to hear from you

•   Expect God to want sincerity of heart on your part.  He is good, gracious, righteous , holy and just.  He also will not excuse anyone who is wicked.  Come to God in humility, without knowingly harboring sin in your heart. 

       Psalm 139:23-24 23  Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:  24  And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

•        Expect to learn about God, His character, what He has done, what He is doing .  Jesus said Search the Scriptures, for these are they that testify of me.

•       Expect to learn about yourself: what His plans are for you (Ephesians 2:10), what He has made you to be in Christ, what resources He’s made available to you to live for Him, what promises are yours to claim, what it means to follow Him.

•        Expect to find things difficult to understand.  Isaiah 55:8-9  For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. 9  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

•        Expect to have questions; ask them.  Many who encountered God had some kind of question. Moses   Exodus_3:11 , Samuel, Isaiah, David, ….Mary – Luke 1:34;   Nicodemus  - John3:4, 9 ;  the disciples, Pharisees, Paul….  God is not afraid of questions. 

•        Expect to be questioned by God  - Adam – Gen 3,  Jesus of his disciples – John 6:5-6, Jesus in the temple as a young boy – Luke 2:46.  God asks questions not because He doesn’t know something, but to cause us to examine ourselves.

•        Expect to have your ideas and opinions challenged by God Himself.  Most people who encountered Jesus left His presence changed.

•        Don’t be surprised to walk away with more questions than when you started, with a need to explore more, perhaps to find more information.  You may need to consult a pastor, a teacher, a more mature Christian.  God put them at our disposal to help us learn what we need to know  so that we could “grow up” to be all we should be in Christ.( Ephesians  4:11-16)

May the testimony of David be ours today,  “When thou saidst,  Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek. “

Introduction to Jonah Study

To Whoever Comes to this Study,

For the next few weeks I hope to use this place/blog to communicate with whoever desires to study the book of Jonah, chapter by chapter with me. 

Each week I plan to:

• examine one chapter of Jonah  by diving into the text.  Prayerfully asking God to lead me/us as we immerse ourselves in Jonah's world. (Puns intended!)😉
• we will examine the facts of the book of Jonah, the character of the human protagonist (warts and all), his everchanging circumstances and how the Sovereign God of all creation - The LORD - reveals Himself through it all.

Expect to :

• come face to face with the LORD as we read the Bible - His Word to us.   [BTW - If you have the desire to read anything in the Bible, it is because The LORD has laid that desire on your heart.  He is calling out to you!] 
• not  only read the Bible, but expect to be READ by it.

I'm not a Bible scholar.  I am a redeemed sinner who completely trusts  Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.  I have diligently read and studied God's Word for the past thirty years.  As a young adult I had the marvelous privilege of attending the Philadelphia College of Bible and learned just enough  hermeneutics,  exegesis, and Greek  to keep me mindful of the gravity of rightly dividing God's Word and the danger of misrepresenting what the LORD has said.

I begin this study with fear and trembling, excitement and trepidation, and confidence that if this study helps anyone it is because the LORD  has used it for His purposes.  To HIM be all glory!