Jonah and Grace

Jonah 2:7-9 Jonah's Prayer in the whale.
"When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, LORD, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the LORD."

I love Jonah's cry out to God. My favorite part is where he says, "Those who cling to worthless idols  forfeit the grace that could be theirs." In one way this verse is heartbreaking but this verse can sometimes be me as well. Sometimes I try to push God's grace away in order to attempt to solve a problem on my own. My worthless idol could be my desire to be self-sufficient. Sometimes I try too hard to try and fix things myself. I try to go about with my plans without consulting God first. I push away the grace that God wants to give me for the chance to try to do things by myself. And in doing so I  lose out on grace.


Grace is not a one time deal. If God will give me grace over and over and over again, I will always take it. I want to receive and store up as much grace as possible! Not to say that I should mess-up as often as possible in order to get more grace. I think that God can give us grace not only when we do wrong but when we do right as well. We sometimes mix up mercy and grace. Mercy is not getting what the punishment that we rightfully deserve. Likewise grace is also not getting what we deserve, coupled with the act of God giving us more than we ever had the right to dream for when we lived under sin. 


Romans 6:1-2
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?  By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?