Witness in Love
“But the LORD said, ‘You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?’”
Today’s Text: Jonah 4 (Living Life Daily Devotional)
The Ninevites were not a people who were deserving of God’s grace and mercy, not in the least. They were a brutal people, known for their cruelty. And so God says of them, they “cannot tell their right hand from their left.” They couldn’t distinguish between right and wrong.
Yet, in His sovereign grace, God chose to give them a chance to repent so that they might avoid His wrath. I think it would be impossible to understand fully why God did that. What we do know is that Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, and God used the Assyrians to bring judgment upon the Northern Kingdom of Israel.
The Assyrians were the ones who conquered the Northern Kingdom, destroyed Samaria, and scattered the Israelites throughout its empire.
But that is not why God spared the Ninevites here. God spared them because He took pity on them. He was concerned for the Ninevites, and He wanted them to know that He is God.
And is that not why we go on missions, as well? The message of Jonah for us is ultimately MISSIONAL. We may not love or even know about the people we go out to. But we go because God calls us to go, and God calls us to go because of God’s love for them, not ours.
At the very least, we are called to bear witness to God’s word to the ends of the earth. And the witness of God’s word will bear fruit in lost souls being saved. But the story of Jonah shows us how the witness of God’s love will bear fruit in our own peace.
In other words, Jonah was obsessed and deeply distressed because of his hatred of the Ninevites and his anger towards God. He could find no peace in his heart. And he put himself in a place of great discomfort and suffering simply for the sake of shaking his fist at God.
“YOU did this to me!”
No, Jonah. You’re doing it to yourself.
God wants us to bear witness with His word, at least. But He also wants us to bear witness with His love, too.
Father, Your are the Giver of life. You are the Father of us all, and You love us all. Forgive us when we lack that same love for one another. Forgive us for not caring about the lives of other people. Make us care, Lord. Give me Your compassion, Lord. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
