Shamrock Refocus

No, I'm not suddenly a consultant for Ireland! Nor have a made any mission trips to Dublin. (Although I would like that very much!) Shamrock is a church up the street and Refocus was the theme for their revival. We finished up last night and hopefully, prayerfully, the people are filled Spiritually for awhile.

Their pastor, Roy, asked our DOM and me to preach for them. I led twice Sunday and then Monday night and Tuesday night, our DOM Jimmy led Wednesday. The theme God wanted was apparently on refocusing on His will for the lives of the people at Shamrock, as both Jimmy and I targeted that message.

The will of God for our life is often camouflaged by the busyness and stress of living in a world of full of distractions. It is one thing to be uncertain about the will of God and miss it, but it is a totally different matter to know will of God and still refuse to do it. The classic example of this in all of the Bible is the story of Jonah.

The word of the Lord cam to Jonah, the son of Amittai saying... It does not matter what the word was, it was clear and distinct. Jonah was to Arise and go to Nineveh and preach. But he did not want to do it, so he arose and went to Tarshish. Complete and unabashed disobedience.

When we run from God's will for our lives we put time and distance between our relationship with God and our service and availability to be used by God. This is what Jonah wanted--to not be used by God. How horrible.

Are we modern day Jonahs? Do we become so comfortable and complacent in our luxuries that we don't want God to "upset our apple cart?" That we would rather miss God's will than be disturbed by His calling? Would we rather dodge our duty rather than do His command? In-other-words, have we become so comfortable where we are now, that we are afraid to take a chance on God and find and be somewhere better? God has a plan for each and every one of the elect. However, we must claim our victory and follow God's plan.

The book of Jonah ends with a question. God asks Jonah about why He (God) shouldn't love the Ninevites. (Only two books in the Old Testament end with questions, and both focus on Nineveh. The other is Nahum.) Why does God leave us hanging with a question and no answer? So we will fill-in the rest as an application to our own lives. So I leave you with a question...will you refocus your priority to finding and fulfilling the will of God for your life?