Jaw-dropping Jewels about Jesus
Rarely does Jesus, God the Son, do exactly what we expect of Him. It seems odd that He so frequently surprises us, given that He never changes. Hebrews 13:8 makes this absolute statement: “Jesus the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Still, though He is blessedly consistent in His goodness, Jesus does unforeseen things. Even when He does what is expected, He does not always do it in the way that we anticipate. Let us join with Jesus on a jaw-dropping journey. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
Last week, we began considering some of the implications of Jesus’ omniscience. From Psalm 103, we saw that Jesus always remembers who we are; and from Psalm 63, we understood that remembering past blessings helps us in our present worries, including those that may impair our sleep. Of course, some of our concerns fall into the category of borrowing trouble. Others, though, are based on hard and harsh reality. For example, the Prophet Jonah was in a perilous predicament. Alone in the belly of a large fish, it is fair to say that he was not having a whale of a time. His circumstance was real, and the outlook was dark, both figuratively and literally. Thus, his statement of Jonah 2:7 is both unexpected and inspirational: “When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came in unto Thee, into Thine holy temple.” Many applications are possible, but I will limit myself to only one: Jesus remembers to remind us to remember Him. In other words, He directs us to pray, for each time we pray, we are reassured that we are not really alone and that our Savior is at work even when an actual difficulty worse than our fears overtakes us (like Jonah’s fat-stomached fish). Because the Lord was with Jonah in that unique event, we can be certain that He Who does not change is also with us.