The Gospel calls us to a life of expectancy. In Luke 1 we see Zechariah and Elizabeth expectant in preparation, expectant in faith, and expectant in restoration. We need to allow the birth of Jesus to remind our hearts of the expectant hope of the Gospel.

We can align our hearts with all sorts of things, but the only true, beneficial alignment is alignment with the heart of God. 

God invites Jonah into heart alignment in three ways: God’s name, nature, and nurture.

Three characteristics of God that draw us into proper heart alignment are His patience, His compassion, and His generosity.

A misunderstanding of God can drive us to fear because we don’t have a full picture of who He is and how He operates. Jesus is actually calling us to live a life that is without fear when it comes to God.

God cannot be manipulated. He graciously acts operates in spite of us and all of our brokenness.

We see in Jonah that God’s grace pursues us in spite of our words, in spite of the worst of who we are, and in spite of our works.

We should be filled with faith because of these realities.

Genuine obedience is only possible for us today in and because of the work of Jesus, not because of anything that we can do. 

So what will you do when God offers you a second chance?

Hopefully our response is to run to Jesus.

Jonah is a foreshadowing of how we will be rescued from the consequences of our sin. God has revealed in Jesus the better Jonah - that He is more precious than our sinful desire and more powerful than the consequence of the willful, sinful rebellion of his people in the past, present, and future.

The real question is what does God want me to be passionate about? The simple answer is loving God and loving people. We love because He first loved us and we need to live on mission for Jesus with His power.

We need to allow God to define our fundamental identity in the relentless love of Christ because when we operate in our own identity -

1. We are often out of touch.

2. We are often out of order.

3. We are always out of control.

When God says go we need to go. When God calls us to obey we obey. The only way we can do this is by understanding and truly believing that God’s relentless love is powerful enough to faithfully shepherd our reluctant hearts.

There is an invitation to participate in the kingdom of God - in its proclamation, in its expansion, and in its preparation. We need to take the kingship of Jesus seriously if we are going to participate in the kingdom of God.