Let it Go Already!

For three nights in the dreams of my sleep this message was constructed and born in my spirit. Not to mention the weeks that this has been echoing in the chambers of my soul, for I could smell what was cooking in the kitchen. I knew it was only a matter of time before I would receive a message dealing with and causing me to declare what I am today, and the past three nights I have tossed and turned as if it were in the belly of the whale with a word from the Lord.

Let it Go!

The lesson found in the book of Jonah is not of Judgment, but of Mercy. The preacher did not even get the message. Sadly this is very often the case, the messenger failed to inspect the contents and results of the message and apply it to his own life.

After Disobeying God. After Fleeing from his responsibility. After running from the very presence and favor of God. After enduring a storm. After being thrown over board. After being swallowed by a fish and dwelling in the gastric juices and dead fish and sea weed for three days. After being puked on the beech.

He resented Nineveh. He blamed Nineveh on his tragedy. He was Mad.

He went Mad. He preached Mad. He stayed Mad. He went outside the City and sat in a booth Mad. He got HOT mad. He fainted Mad. He was Mad that God did not destroy the source of his problems. The source of his problem was himself. He was not a big enough man to see it.

It is not your Parents. Not your Brother. Not your enemy. Not People, Not Churches, not Preachers. Not the World. Not Sin. Not even the Devil and his legions of Devils. But the greatest source of struggle in life is

Your RESPONSE TO GOD.

Jonah failed to see that the reason for his situation was how he looked at it. IMAGINE with me. He goes and preaches to a city of 60,000 wicked souls and they ALL repent. And he gets Mad because God does not burn them up.

God asked him a question, “Doest thou well to be angry?”

Jonah is an exact replica of what I don’t won’t for a preacher or pastor. Jonah, the book about the infamous prophet ends with him mad. Not saying he was lost, only an observation, His book ended with him mad.

Let it Go

Who does it hurt for us to harbor and hold on to things that have happened and did not happen? So often times the people we hold grudges on, don’t even know or care that we are mad at them. So it is eating on you on the inside…. Causes you to grit your teeth, toss and turn, fuss and fight, cuss and scream, rant and rave.

In your little life’s game of monopoly. You’re mad. All the while, they are sleeping like a baby, laughing all the way to the bank, passing go, and collecting two hundred dollars, oblivious to your torment. And you’re stuck in Jail with that frown…. Holding on to the bars that seemingly confine you.

RELEASE

If your anger is not hurting the person it is directed to…. WHO is it hurting? Who is loosing sleep? Who is tossing and turning? Who is getting ulcers? Whose mind is getting bent?

Just let it go.


The paradox of Jonah is another prophet.

A man. A man who did not have a house or a home. A man who did good everywhere he went.

He helped people pay their taxes. He helped people who were hungry to eat. He rescued a lady who was about to be killed. He helped a blind man to see. He helped a deaf man to hear. He helped a lame man to walk. He helped a dumb man to talk. He looked up to see a short man and went to his house to eat at a man who could not get to him.

He never lied. He never did anything but good. His twelve closest friend forsook him in his time of greatest need. His accountant sold him to his enemies. His most vocal supporter denied him and cursed at his memory. He was hated by everyone he was trying to help. He was innocent of any fault, yet a crowd called for his death.

Not just any death, but the most horrible, crushing, shameful, diabolically painful, tortuous death that could be died.

He was spat on by those who took him. They plucked his beard of his face, chunk by chunk. They took a thorn bush with thorns two inches long and wove it in a circle and crushed it up his scalp. They paraded his bleeding mass of a body that was unrecognizable. A bleeding pulp waking through the streets of a city he wept over.

He was laid upon a tree. His hands were cruelly taken and nailed upon the rough-hewn tree. His feet were fastened together and a single spike went through the bones in his feet. He took it all without one accusation or question. He opened not his mouth.

They took that cruel tree and dropped it in a hole and I can not imagine the agony as his body shook under the impact. For the next 4 –6 hours he hung there. He was ridiculed. He was laughed at. He was cursed. He was spat upon.

The Traffic slowed down, as people turned to gaze at this spectacle of humanity. As he was hanging there, looking at the city that rejected him, the soldiers that abused him, the Nation he was sent to save.

He lifted up his Voice and Cried………………………

FATHER FORGIVE THEM, for they know not what they do.

I was there. You were there. We all here today have bloody hands, because our failures helped nail him. My mistakes were the power behind those roman soldiers fists as they beat him. It was your stubborn ways, rebellious ways that stripped the dignity from deity and caused him to be the laughing stock of the world.

Jesus had plenty of reason to be mad. But he opened the door of mercy. I don’t deserve the privilege to even tell of this story today. But Christ was CRUCIFIED for your wickedness. For your stubbornness. For your rebelliousness. For your hardness.

We can be Like Jonah and be surrounded by mercy, but not taste of its sweet nectar. We can be like Jonah and be recipients of his power to save and never understand its amazing GRACE.

I need Jesus to open my eyes fresh. Mercy there was great and Grace was free, Pardon there was multiplied to me, there my burdened soul found liberty, at Calvary. I need his heavenly Gaze to fall upon my soul and words of unspeakable power to be spoken of his forgiveness.

The ONLY WAY I CAN TASTE of his GRACE. I must be willing to follow his example of Forgiveness.

You and I must be able to look at the source, or suspected source of problems and persecution and pray forgiveness and mercy in their lives. If we cannot we will preach to others of his Mercy only to be found on the trash pile of human debris. Let us not let our book end with us sitting outside the city mad.

If you have been wronged or suffered because of the call of ministry on your life, let me give you a word today. God probably used your tormenters to purify something out of you.

I read this morning a powerful passage of what David said when Shemei was cursing him. One of his supporters wanted to kill the cursing man, but David said,

“ And the king said, What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah? so let him curse, because the LORD hath said unto him, Curse David. Who shall then say, Wherefore hast thou done so? And David said to Abishai, and to all his servants, Behold, my son, which came forth of my bowels, seeketh my life: how much more now may this Benjamite do it? let him alone, and let him curse; for the LORD hath bidden him. It may be that the LORD will look on mine affliction, and that the LORD will requite me good for his cursing this day.”

The bottom line is we must follow Christ’s example he showed when he was betrayed, beaten, ridiculed and done wrong. “He opened not his mouth.” The words he spoke were those of forgiveness and mercy.

The book ended with the prophet mad.

The Life of Jesus ended with Mercy, and his book is still being written.

To the wrongs done, betrayal experienced, hardships endured, difficulties. If you think you have someone to blame,

God asks you a question, “Doest thou well to be angry?”

Let it Go!

In Him, By Him, Through Him,

Scott Phillips