The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai
Jonah 1:1 (HCSB)
What great truth and wonder is found in these first few words of Jonah: “The word of the Lord came.” Has the Lord spoken into your life with his purpose and majestic love? In the Bible, the Lord spoke and came to his people in various ways. We first encounter ‘The Word of the Lord’ coming to Abraham right back in Genesis 15:4-7. There, The Word of the Lord is clearly not just a voice or a feeling but a person, the kind of person who can lead Abraham out of his tent and show him the stars. The Word of the Lord tells Abraham that his name is Yahweh. The Word of the Lord is Yahweh, he is Jesus—”In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Has the Lord Jesus Christ spoken into your life with his purpose and majestic love? Of course, Jesus is now bodily in heaven, pleading our cause before our loving Father, so we should not expect to see him as Abraham did, till we meet him at our death.
We do not know if the ‘Word of the Lord’ who came to Jonah was actually Jesus in person or just a voice, but it matters not—God spoke to Jonah. Today, we may hear the Lord speak to us in many ways: through heartfelt prayer as our hands reach up to touch the throne of God; through the still, small voice as we meditate upon God’s glory and mercy; through the people who teach us and preach to us the Good News of Jesus Christ. But we must never lose sight of the primary means by which God has chosen to speak to us, to give us direction, to provide us with truth, to comfort, and to strengthen us—through the words of the Bible: his words, his perfect, timeless, infallible, inerrant, pure, and beautiful words. If we long to hear God speak to us, we are called, above all else, to seek him through study and meditation upon the Bible, study that is both humble and prayerful.
