Saturday 20 Sep 2014

September 20: Jonah 4:1-4

Key Verse: Jonah 3:10
Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.

Devotion:
I have included the last verse from the previous chapter because it sets the scene. Jonah, after spending some time in the belly of the big fish, was still in no mood to preach to the people of Nineveh; but he did because he now knew God was very serious about it! After he had gone through all the horror of being swallowed by the fish and vomited up after three days, he was not in any mood to see the people forgiven even though he was telling them they had to repent…

God is very patient and full of grace and mercy. This short story should more than convince us of this, but we would probably be more like Jonah and wish destruction upon them after being treated as Jonah was. Yet Christ was to go through a whole lot more than Jonah and He still went through with it knowing it was the only way we could truly be forgiven.

We know or are taught that God is gracious and will forgive almost every sin that we can come up with when we do truly repent. We are taught that God is very patient and kind. We are taught that we should follow on from His examples. Yet when push comes to shove we would rather the ‘naughty people’ get punished because we have had to endure so much because of sin in the world. We may want to blame the rest of the world for all that goes wrong, but we don’t really have the right to do so!

It is our lot to forgive just as Christ forgives us. It is our lot to offer that forgiveness even though we do not want to. It is our lot to offer it time and time again even when we are pushed to breaking point; after all we pushed Christ beyond breaking point when He offered forgiveness! Don’t be like Jonah and go off and sulk because we have been wronged. Look for Christ for strength and grace to forgive them just as He forgave us.

Points to Ponder:
Do you react like Jonah?

Are you willing to be more like Christ?