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Thought for the day...
Wednesday, May 16, 2012 -
Day 137
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Dispensing God's Grace
"And he prayed to the Lord and said, "I pray thee, 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 thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and repentest of evil." Jonah 4:2
Jonah understood the nature and character of God. If Nineveh repented, God would probably spare them. At least two things embarrassed Jonah: First, God did not charge him with the task of making his pronouncement of judgment conditional upon Nineveh's repentance; Jonah did not preach, if you do not repent, God will destroy you, but rather, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." What he prophesied did not transpire. Jonah was angry because God had not destroyed the city as he had preached, and would gladly have seen.
Second, Jonah did not want God to save Israel's enemies. He did not like what God did with His grace. He says this is why he fled from God to Tarshish in the first place: "For I knew that Thou are a gracious God and merciful." On the eve of Assyria becoming a world-conquering power resulting in Israel's deportation, God sent Jonah to preach repentance in its capitol. It was unthinkable that God would extend His grace to such a people. Most, if not all, arguments in church history deal with Jonah's second question of who gets to dispense and control the grace of God.
You can easily develop an adversarial relationship with government over what you perceive to be unjust laws. But never forget that you cannot think evil of people and be a channel of God's grace to them. You may believe that certain people act in an unbiblical and deplorable fashion, but if you do not love them, you cannot represent God to them without becoming a Jonah. God calls you to proclaim His message of grace. Never prejudge who should and should not be the objects of His grace.
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Devotional © Copyright by Walter A Henrichsen.
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