ESOCS Devotional 26 September 2026 – How Do You Respond to God’s Word?
MEMORY VERSE: “Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, (JONAH 1:1 KJV).
TEXT: JONAH 1: 1 – 8
Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.” 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.
4 But the Lord sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship was about to be broken up.
5 Then the mariners were afraid; and every man cried out to his god, and threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea, to lighten the load. But Jonah had gone down into the lowest parts of the ship, had lain down, and was fast asleep.
6 So the captain came to him, and said to him, “What do you mean, sleeper? Arise, call on your God; perhaps your God will consider us, so that we may not perish.”
7 And they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this trouble has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 Then they said to him, “Please tell us! For whose cause is this trouble upon us? What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?”
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God speaks with a specific purpose, and God speaks at a specific time. And when God speaks according to his purpose and according to his time, there is always a response required. In our text, the word of the Lord came to Jonah to go to Nineveh to deliver God’s word to the people of Nineveh (Jonah 1: 1-2). How did Jonah respond? He rose up to flee (Jonah 1:3). How are you responding to God’s word? The purpose of a call from God is to serve other people. Jonah’s call is for the benefit of Nineveh. When he rejects God’s guidance, not only do the people he was called to serve languish, but the people surrounding him suffer (Jonah 1:4 – 6).
In Jonah 3, we see the Word of the Lord coming to Jonah the second time (Jonah 3:1) but this time, Jonah’s response was in the positive… he chose to obey (Jonah 3:3). The people of Nineveh believed God’s word and proclaimed a fast when it came to them (Jonah 3:5 – 8). How do you respond to the Word of the Lord? What are you going to do with what the Holy Spirit is pointing out? Will you reject the word of the Lord like Jonah did in our text? Will you choose to flee from God’s presence? Sometimes our response is a physical action. Sometimes our response is taking our thoughts captive. Sometimes our response is renewing our heart and our mind to be aligned with God’s Word. But there is one phrase that is always involved in correctly responding to God’s Word – obedient – faithful – action.
We are like Jonah in many ways. We run from God out of fear, worry what people will think, and fear what they might do to us. Therefore, we run. But we forget just like Jonah that the Lord is the One to be feared. He’s the powerful one. We also run from God out of hatred. We all have people we think are too far gone, people in our city we would rather just avoid. There are segments of our population that we tend to look down upon. There are groups of people we unfairly stereotype. This is every one of us. We forget that He is the Lord of grace and we’ve experienced his kindness time and time again. Like Jonah, we too run from God out of pride. Don’t we often want to do things our way? Don’t we want to seize and maintain control rather than letting go and submitting to God’s will? We try to manipulate situations. We view prayer as a last resort. We run through the “what-ifs and the if-thens” in our heads until we make ourselves crazy.
Your ongoing relationship with Jesus Christ, or lack thereof, is a direct result of your response to Him. Your relationship with Jesus will either increase or decrease based on your response to Him. Where Jesus Christ is concerned, there is always a “Response Required.” No response means no relationship. If we accept that we are all called to serve God in our work—which is probably different from Jonah’s work, but no less important to God, then we recognize that failing to serve God in our work also diminishes our communities.
Challenges:
- How do you respond to the word of the Lord in times of difficulty?
- Can anything separate you from responding to the word of the Lord in obedience, faith and action?
Prayer:
Father, help me to always respond to Your word in obedience, faith and action in Jesus name. Amen.
FURTHER READING:
Luke 4: 1 – 15; 1 Kings 8:1 – 20; 1 Corinthians 12: 1 – 15
ESOCS Devotional 26 September 2026
