Christian Devotional – October 19, 2023

Evangelism 101, Day 4

An innocent man. Read Jonah 1:11-14.

As we pick up from the story yesterday, we see that the men are terrified and they are in the midst of a storm. Where is Jonah? He is in the bottom of the boat asleep. So they wake him up and ask him what’s going on. Jonah admits to them that this whole storm is his fault. He has been disobedient to God and God is punishing all of them because of it. Jonah tells the men to throw him overboard. Still, when the men refer to him in the next verse, they call him innocent. They pray to God and ask God not to hold the death of this innocent man against them.

I find it fascinating that even after all of the things that he had done wrong, the men still saw him as innocent. They didn’t immediately rush to throw him overboard. They tried to make it work. We have a relationship with God and others can see it. Our relationship with God may be a struggle at times, like Jonah, but even these men recognized that Jonah was someone who communicated with God.

People see us the same way. We have a responsibility to share with others about are relationship with God. Even when we have fallen short, others need to be encouraged by the knowledge that there is the one true God out there and that he loves them and is seeking them, even when they have strayed.