Extend Grace
Last night our Ladies Bible Study group finished a series by Priscilla Shirer called “Jonah- Navigating a Life Interrupted”. We had a great seven weeks looking at the book of Jonah. For such a short book of the bible we saw God unpack so many important truths. Each week as we studied through our homework I would begin to sense the Holy Spirit speaking something brand new to my heart. The most convicting lesson was about grace.
Jonah was a prophet called by God to go to Nineveh and preach a message of repentance. You would think that being a prophet of God, someone whose job it was to deliver God’s messages to His people, this would have been no problem for Jonah, but that was not the case. After hearing God’s calling Jonah tried to flee to Tarshish to run away from what God was asking him to do.
Most of you probably already know what happens next. Jonah charters a boat to take him as far away from Nineveh as possible, but God, being the Good Father that He is caused a great storm to come upon the sea, and eventually Jonah finds himself overboard and swallowed up by a great fish. While in the belly of the fish Jonah realizes that maybe he does actually need God’s help and cries out to Him. God was merciful to Jonah and after three days caused the fish to spit him outright back where he started. Once again, God calls Jonah to go to Nineveh to preach His message of repentance. This time Jonah goes, but his heart doesn’t quite follow.
Jonah’s problem was that he didn’t think the Ninevites deserved God’s mercy. Nineveh was an idolatrous nation that had long been a threat to Israel. Jonah wanted nothing to do with the Ninevites and did not want to see God’s mercy for them. We see Jonah pitch a fit over this in chapter four.
“This change of plans greatly upset Jonah, and he became very angry. So he complained to the Lord about it: “Didn’t I say before I left home that you would do this, Lord? That is why I ran away to Tarshish! I knew that you are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. You are eager to turn back from destroying people. Just kill me now, Lord! I’d rather be dead than alive if what I predicted will not happen.” Jonah 4:2-3
Jonah would rather be dead than see God relent from destroying Nineveh and extend to them the same grace that God had extended to him. Wow. As I read this chapter it was so hard for me to understand how Jonah couldn’t see that they deserved God’s grace just as much as he did, but then the Holy Spirit caused me to start investigating my own heart.
How often have I not been willing to extend grace to those that I didn’t think deserved it? It’s so easy for us to be loving and gracious to those people in our lives that we love and truly believe have had a change of heart, but maybe not as easy to those who we believe have wronged us in some way. How could Jonah not see that God could have left him in the belly of that fish. He deserved it, right? He was disobedient to God, therefore there would be consequences. Yet, God was slow to anger and merciful to Jonah. God wanted Jonah to understand that and then extend that same grace to the Ninevites. He wants the same thing for us!
When we truly understand the grace that was extended to us on the cross when Jesus died for our sins it should compel us to extend the same amount of grace to the people in our lives. It’s not for us to determine if they deserve it or not. We did nothing to deserve Jesus’ grace.
“While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
We can choose today to be like Jonah. We can pout and be mad that God would bless someone with mercy that we don’t think deserves it and thus separate ourselves from His presence. Or, we can choose to extend the same grace that God has given us to everyone we meet and live a life full of His Spirit. Be thankful today for God’s grace and extend it to someone else.
April Brazelton
Lean into Jesus Ministries
#aprilbrazeltonblogs