2018 Weekly Devotional - Week 21

Week 21

“Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh,
that great city, and call out against it, for their evil[a] has come up before me.” 3 But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great
city,[a] three days' journey in breadth.[b] 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. 6 The word reached[c] the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, 8 but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. 9 Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”
10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
But it displeased Jonah exceedingly,[a] and he was angry. 2 And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. 3 Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

    My Uncle George tells the story from his childhood about an African-American man who came to their back door wanting some food. It was the late 1940’s or early 1950’s and times were hard. Very few people had much in those days but as always some had more than others. My grandpa was a maintenance foreman for the Katy railroad and the man who showed up at my grandpa’s door worked with him. My Uncle tells how shocked he was to hear my grandpa refuse this man’s request for food and to hear my grandpa tell this man to never come to his backdoor again! My Uncle was equally shocked, but relieved, to hear my grandpa tell this man he would feed him and to always come to his front door when he visited. This may not sound all that impressive to us but you must remember that in those days racial prejudices were common and the accepted practice was for African-Americans to come to the back door of a white person’s home. My grandpa treated this man with dignity, respect, and as an equal.
Jonah was a bigot. He was prejudiced against the Ninevites because he perceived them to be more immoral than he. To make the situation worse, Jonah knew that the Lord was merciful and that the Ninevites would respond to the Lord’s mercy. Jonah was so upset over the fact that the Ninevites had responded to the Lord’s mercy that he even asked the Lord to kill him! Jonah believed death was better than life if that meant the Ninevites received God’s mercy. Talk about prejudice!

    Too often the church exists in its own “holy huddle”. We convince ourselves that we are morally superior to those around us. Sometimes our prejudices run even deeper to classify people as more immoral simply because they are from a different ethnic background. That belief is itself immoral and indicates an incredible ignorance of the word of God. Ravi Zacharias makes the salient point that people are immoral because they are first impious. Our immorality stems from the lack of a proper understanding of who God is. We do not regard the Lord’s holiness and therefore act in a way contradictory to God’s holiness. The Bible declares that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We are all in need of grace and therefore should see each other as either objects of God’s grace or those in need of God’s grace. If we have received grace, the life of Christ in us will desire for all of mankind to experience the wonderful, deep, magnificent, and utterly fantastic grace of God irrespective of any perceived differences. If you stand in need of God’s saving grace, surrender your life to Christ Jesus today. Die to yourself, confess your sin to Jesus, receive his forgiveness and walk in newness of life!

In Christ,

John