#8: Reduce God’s Salvation by Crediting Your Response

“I called out to the LORD, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.”

Jonah 2:1

Jonah is a wonderful model for us here. Notice, he gives God all the glory for his salvation. “Salvation belongs to the LORD!” (2:9).

C. H. Spurgeon says, “Jonah learned this sentence of good theology in a strange college…. Most of the grand truths of God have to be learned by trouble; they must be burned into us with the hot iron of affliction, otherwise we shall not truly receive them.”

We have been talking about how Jonah had been avoiding a God-centred life, but now we see how utterly God-centred Jonah became. Jonah 2 is a song of praise in which God gets all the glory for Jonah’s salvation.

From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. Notice how Jonah speaks directly to God, using the words “you” and “your”:

“I called out to the LORD… and you heard my voice.
For you cast me into the deep… all your breakers and your waves passed over me.
I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.’
You brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God…
My prayer came to you, into your holy temple…
I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you... Salvation belongs to the LORD!” (2:2-9).

God saves!

Have you been giving God all the glory for your salvation? Or have you been taking some of the credit for it because of your response?