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Pastor Richard "Buddy" Wimberly "The Pursuer" Jonah 1:4

• God's love was pursuing Jonah.
• God sends storms into our lives not to hurt us, but to mold us and make us into the Christians we should become. 
• We cannot run from God. He is omniscient, meaning everywhere.
• God wanted Jonah's heart as well as his obedience.
• God was not only trying to change Jonah's direction, but also his heart. That was God's main concern. 
• Sometimes we become so hard-hearted that we become unconcerned with the negatives going on with our circumstances.
• When those circumstances arise we should be praying, not sleeping. We should look to God for answers and comfort.
• Jonah should have asked for forgiveness, instead of instructing the men on the boat to kill him. 
• By saying: Throw me into the sea, he's instructing them to kill him. The guys in the boat, tried to row harder to prevent from killing Jonah. 
• The guys in the ship are asking God, Jehovah, to forgive them for what they were about to do. Jonah never prayed during the ordeal.
• Depressed people isolate themselves from everything and everyone. Jonah was in this state. 
• Jonah confessed his sin on the boat; however, in chapter 2, he repents after 3 days in the belly of the fish.
• Sin will take you further than you want to go, will keep you longer than you want to stay and cost you more than you want to pay.
• In chapter 3, it angered Jonah that Nineveh repented.
• Jonah's attitude had changed. 
• Once your God's, He is to be the commissioner of your path.
• God didn't just let Jonah go, because of God's love for Jonah. WE MATTER TO GOD. 
• God is the God of second chances. He grants us a second chance even though we DON'T deserve it. 

• When we break fellowship, God wants to restore the fellowship He had with us. 
• When Adam and Eve had fallen in the Garden, it was God who came down in the cool of the evening, not
• Adam. Romans tells us that man doesn't seek God.
• Correction is required because of love; if God didn't love us, He wouldn't correct us. 
• We are the servant, He is the master. We must not forget that.