Greetings in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
We are entering into a new financial year. Thank God for His blessings on the year 2018-2019. I give thanks to the office bearers and kaisthana samithy members for their service in the church. God may help us to serve Him with courage and faith in the New financial year.
Christian life is a victorious life. But it entails discipline and determination to run this race. Being already on the run up to inherit the glorious rewards set for us in eternity, we need to be alert to progress steadily. There is always pressure to get distracted and to take a digressive course but only those who pursue with single-minded purpose will make it. Nevertheless, it is our all-compassionate God who fulfills His purposes in us and who never fails to restore the strayed and the stranded.
Two complementary aspects of God’s grace is very much on view here in Jonah’s story: one His sovereignty and the other His compassion. Being the Creator, He commanded the wind, the great fish and the vine-and all obeyed Him underscoring His over-arching supremacy. But this great God is mindful of man! He showed mercy to the erring Jonah and reinstated him. The Bible portrays time and again a glaring contrast between God and man: God who is true to His character and the failing man; faithful God, unfaithful man; never changing God, fickle-minded man; ever-waiting God, easily frustrating man and never-failing God, ever-faltering man.