Jonah 4 vs 1 - 2 (NKJV):
1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry.
2 So he prayed to the Lord, and said, "Ah, Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm"
I am sure we all know the story of Jonah. If you don't, here is the background. The Lord sent Jonah(a prophet) to deliver a message to Nineveh to say that the Lord had a cry against the city because of their wickedness. Jonah fled from the Lord because he didn't want to deliver the message so he got on a ship.
When Jonah was on the ship, the Lord sent out a great wind on the sea. The people on the ship were afraid. Long story short, they threw Jonah out of the ship because he was the reason God caused the storm. When Jonah was thrown into the sea, he was swallowed by a great fish for 3 days until the Lord spoke to the fish to vomit Jonah onto dry land. Kindly read the book of Jonah for context. It's only 4 chapters so its a relatively short but impactful read.
In chapter 4, Jonah is angry at God because He forgave the people that He wanted to destroy. Jonah is like a lot of us, me included, we expect forgiveness from God yet we struggle with the fact that God offers that same forgiveness to others. This is where we see self righteousness in Jonah, he believes that the people deserved punishment instead they received forgiveness from God.
This chapter just revealed to me how easy it is to be the opposite of what God wants us to be. Being more like Christ is the challenging part. What stood out to me was how easy it is to fall into hypocrisy, Jonah is angry that God chose to forgive his people but Jonah was the same person that also prayed for forgiveness after running from God. So the question is, why do we find it so difficult to accept that God is more than capable of loving and forgiving all of us? It's as if we think God's love is diminished when its extended to others besides us.
I spend time on social media so I have noticed how people use other people's sins to make themselves feel better about their own sin. In the case of Jonah, its like he deemed the people's sin so horrible that salvation wasn't an option for them. As if they were unworthy of God's forgiveness.
Many people fail to comprehend that sin is sin and the wages of sin are the same. We need to stop thinking that there are rankings to sin or that certain sins are "better" in comparison to other sins. And this is how we see that God's word is timeless. He knew that at some point we would rank sins in order to make ourselves feel better so He cleared the confusion.
James 2 vs 11 (NKJV):
For He who said, "Do not commit adultery", also said, "Do not murder". Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.
This verse makes it clear that it doesn't matter what the sin is, it doesn't matter how "big or small" it is, sin makes you a transgressor of the law.
I love the last verse of chapter 4, it showed me God's character in such a profound way. It highlighted to me that He is a Father. Even in His anger He had compassion and could not destroy the city because at the end of the day, those are His children.
To Jonah, destruction seemed justified but to God, those were the people that were created in his likeness. They were His creation. God's compassion wasn't a weakness, it was a reflection of His divine heart, His unconditional love, grace and mercy.
Seeing it from that perspective really changed something in me. It is really easy to be a Jonah but it doesn't mean you have to be. Let us pray against self righteousness, God is faithful enough to help us through it.
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