The Runaway – The Reason We Runنموونە

We Just Say No

The book of Jonah is centered on the commands of God and Jonah running away from what God had called him to do. What does running from God look like today? We’re not getting this audible voice saying, “Josh, go to Iraq.” That’s not exactly how God is operating today, though He very well can do that through the power of the Holy Spirit. What I’m talking about is what does it look like in our culture, at this point in time, to run away from God? We are not so abrupt or obvious with our running away from God. Running away from God today simply means disobedience. 

Buckle up! Here we go... There are three things we do to disobey God. The first thing we do is we just say no. Elli, my daughter, is in this stage where she’s learning how to test my authority. Whenever I tell her to not do something, she’ll try to test me and do that very same thing deliberately and say, “No, no.” I think we do the same thing with God when He calls us very clearly to obey His commandments. Some of us are running away from God deliberately. We are just saying no to the things of God. If your lifestyle is deliberately saying no to God, where you know you are living in sin and you choose to continue to live in sin, I am here to tell you that it is a very dangerous place to be. God tells us that He will turn our hearts to our own evil—He will harden our hearts. In the book of Jonah, we see God’s grace extend to Jonah. What a tragedy it would be that God’s grace wouldn't reach you in this lifetime because of a hardened heart—not because God is not pursuing you. 

You can justify in your mind.  You could say, “Well, that’s just cultural Christianity. I don’t like to believe that part of the Bible. I’d like to choose this option for me and my family.” That’s a run-away zone right there. We just say a flat-out no and justify it. Just like Adam and Eve in the garden, we do the same thing today. When I look at it through Elli’s lenses, she knows very clearly what I’m telling her to do because she looks over at me, and then does it and says: No, no. Sometimes we try to push disobedience into ignorance and say, “Oh, I didn’t know that about God.” Ignorance is not bliss when it comes to obeying God.