I published a post this week on the blog about how a true understanding of grace allows you to just go sin all you want. If that is really what you want.
I am going to write more about that in the coming weeks, but I received several emails from readers who wanted to know if I meant intentional sin as well.
If a person intentionally and knowingly sins, will God still love them, forgive them, accept them, and keep them in His family?
The answer is yes. There is no sin, intentional or unintentional, which will cause God to stop loving you and forgiving you. This is a big theme in a lot of my writings and teachings. I teach a lot more about this in my course, The Gospel According to Scripture, but I’m bringing it up now because in the verse we are looking at today from Jonah, we see Jonah commit a pretty big sin. And he does it intentionally.
Jonah pretty much slaps God in the face. He spits in God’s face. To put it more crudely, Jonah gives God the finger. You can’t get much worse or much more intentional than that. And we will see in future episodes how God responds. If you feel like you have sinned pretty badly, then make sure you keep listening to the podcast because you will be both challenged and encouraged.
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The Text of Jonah 1:3
But Jonah arose 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 down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
In this discussion of Jonah 1:3 we look at:
- What it means for Jonah to flee to Tarshish instead of go to Nineveh
- The significance of the term “the presence of the Lord”
- What the story is telling us by the repeated use of the word “down”
Resources:
Downloadable Podcast Resources
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