Month: March 2026

On Which of Us Deserves Mercy

Jonah 3:4-6, 10; 4:1-4 NIV  “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” 5 The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. 6 When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust…10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.

 4:1 But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. 2 He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. 3 Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

4 But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

Observation

Jonah can be called the antithetical messenger (reluctant prophet?) of God’s global mercy.  The Jews of his time were very insular and possessive of Yahweh – He belonged to them and them alone.  Despite the fact that He was creator of all people and over all the earth, they did not see Yahweh as God for all peoples.  This mindset is evident in Jonah’s resentment of the mercy shown to the Ninevites.  After all, the pagan Ninevites were cruel conquerors feared throughout the world.  Jonah saw them as unworthy, undeserving and unforgivable.  How could his God possibly consider offering even one chance at grace and mercy to such evil people?  After some persuasion (three days in the belly of a fish), Jonah went to Nineveh with a message of imminent destruction.  When the city humbled itself in repentance, Jonah was furious with God for the mercy given.

Jonah was upset at God for “making him a liar” but also for being so generous with grace to  a people who were known as evil, cruel and pagan.  I suspect that Jonah’s original reluctance to go could have been based in fear of what the evil Ninevites might do to him – torture and death.  He relented and obeyed only when the consequences of disobeying God  became more real and frightening than the alternative.  At least the message he was asked to deliver was one of destruction – just what the Ninevites deserved!!  But God, rich in mercy, disappointed Jonah again.

Impact on Me

This grace and mercy toward the pagan, unlovely, even cruel is a foreshadowing of the new covenant in Christ.  Jesus, “friend of sinners,” demonstrated God’s liberality in pouring out grace to whosoever would come without exacting punishment or requiring rigid slavish rule following (earning grace points by good behavior and other works that we check off on a list).  This was a major paradigm shift for the disciples in His time.  I believe we suffer from the same human failing when we judge someone worthless, unworthy or unforgivable.  Do I write some people off in my heart as worthless, unworthy or unforgivable?   Am I like Jonah, resenting when God shows favor to someone I consider evil or cruel?  Who are my Ninevites?

I also have to examine the reason behind what I do in the name of Jesus.  The works I do should be based in and flow from my gratitude for the love, grace and mercy extended to me by God, not as a public demonstration to show others the depth of my spirituality, my faith, my fear of God.  Works performed to gain grace and favor with other people or God are completely rooted in duty and miss the point.  It is by grace we are saved, not our works.  Salvation comes through repentance because God has mercy on us – even when we are worthless, unworthy and unforgivable.  My gratitude for His redemption should result in works of serving with compassion, grace, humility as I live a life of love which reveals Christ to others.  May this always be my motivation.

Devotion

Almighty God, Creator, Redeemer, God of Mercy and Grace, I give You all the praise for all the work of my hands.  Lord, never let me get away with allowing the fear of what any person can do change my YES to whatever You ask me to do.  Give me the wisdom to know when I should say “No” or when my motivation is not gratitude for all You have done for me.  I want to live a life that announces out loud Whose I am, Whom I serve and Who deserves all the praise.  In Jesus’ name, I pray you will make it so.

On Did You Forget Who I AM

Mark 4:35-41 PHILLIPS   On the evening of that day, He said to them, “Let us cross over to the other side of the lake.”  So they sent the crowd home and took Him with them in the little boat in which He had been sitting, accompanied by other small craft.  Then came a violent squall of wind which drove the waves aboard boat until it was almost swamped.  Jesus was in the stern asleep on the cushion.  They awoke Him with words, “Master, don’t You care that we’re drowning?”  And He woke up, rebuked the wind, and said to the waves, “Hush now!  Be still!”  The wind dropped and everything was very still.  “Why are you so frightened?  What has happened to your faith?!’ He asked them.  But sheer awe swept over them and they kept saying to each other, “Who ever can He be? – even the wind and waves do what He tells them!”

Below excerpted from the JESUS STORYBOOK BIBLE

“Jesus stood up and spoke to the storm.  “Hush!,” He said.  That’s all.  And the strangest thing happened….  The wind and the waves recognized Jesus’ voice.  (They had heard it before, of course – it was the same voice that made them in the beginning.)  They listened to Jesus and they did what He said. 

Immediately the wind stopped.  The water calmed down.  It glittered innocently in the moonlight and lapped quietly against the side of the boat, as if nothing had happened.  The little boat bobbed gently up and down and there was a great quiet all around.  Then Jesus turned to His wind-torn friends.  “Why were you so scared?” He asked.  “Did you forget Who I AM?  Did you believe your fears instead of me?”

Jesus’ friends were quiet – as quiet as the wind and the waves.  And into their hearts came a different kind of storm.  “What kind of man is this?” they asked themselves anxiously.  “Even the wind and the waves obey Him!” they said because they didn’t understand.  They didn’t realize yet that Jesus was the Son of God.

Jeus’ friends had been so afraid they had only seen the big waves.  They had forgotten that, if Jesus was with them, they had nothing to be afraid of.  NO MATTER HOW SMALL THEIR BOAT OR HOW BIG THE STORM. 

Observation

This lake was familiar to them; it was their usual fishing grounds.  As fishermen, they knew how to handle a boat in rough water and how to judge the weather to know when a storm was coming.  This one surprised and frightened them with its intensity and their inability to control the situation.  If these fishermen were panicky and terrified, it was surely a wild, violent and powerful storm.  Surely, they would have thought it strange that Jesus could remain asleep in the chaotic buffeting of this storm, but they were so focused on the wind, the waves and the water washing into the boat that they had stopped thinking.

Jesus wanted them to move their thinking, their understanding, out of the natural – what is humanly possible – into the supernatural – what is possible for God.  When it came time to feed the 5000, hadn’t Jesus taken a meager and insufficient little boy’s lunch and supernaturally made it more than enough for everyone to eat and be filled?  When the incurably sick came, was Jesus able to heal every disease?  This stormy trip was a new circumstance but the same Jesus. 

So, here Jesus gives them a dose of truth and grace by asking, “Why were you scared?  Did you forget who I AM?  Did you believe your fears instead of me?”  Then, instead of bringing the boat under control, He calms the sea.  He wanted them to understand, to embrace, that all needs, all circumstances, all storms, all insufficiencies, all scary situations are subject to God’s power and authority in and through Him.  “Jesus’ friends had been so afraid they had only seen the big waves.  They had forgotten that, if Jesus was with them, they had nothing to be afraid of.  NO MATTER HOW SMALL THEIR BOAT OR HOW BIG THE STORM.”

Impact on Me

“Why were you scared?  Did you forget who I AM?  Did you believe your fears instead of me?”  These are questions I revisit in every scary storm of life, every time when there is not enough, every time sickness threatens, every time the world seems out of control, every time evil seems to be winning.  I am always tempted to believe as a new year passes that we can leave the stormy times of the past behind – years filled with pandemic, death, rioting, rising crime rates, conflict driven by anger, injustice, loss of trust in those who rule over us (federal, state and local), misinformation & conspiracy theories, war and every other disruption of our usual “fishing grounds”. 

For any student of history, all of these circumstances are not new.  These life events are part of the human condition, repeated over and over from ancient times.  They are the legacy of that first mutiny by Adam and Eve in the Garden when they chose to take control away from God and into their own hands by eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  I have made the mistake of eating that fruit many times in my life. However, I have come to know through the experience of my life that the only guarantee of security and peace in life, the only foundation on which hope can be built, has been, continues to be, and will forever remain depending upon this same Jesus that calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee all those years ago. 

So, when I am buffeted by a storm, I need to stop to revisit the questions above and remember that all creation (seen and unseen, emotional, physical, natural or supernatural) is subject to Him.  “The wind and the waves recognized Jesus’ voice.  (They had heard it before, of course – it was the same voice that made them in the beginning.)  They listened to Jesus and they did what He said.”  Jesus has promised to never leave me or forsake me so He will always be in my boat.  Whether He is awake or asleep, when I think my boat is about to sink, I need to go back and sit down next to Jesus, trusting that we will make it to the other side – regardless of the intensity of the storm along the way.

Devotion

Lord, You are the Creator of all the good that exists.  You still have all authority and power in heaven and on earth.  You are executing Your plan created from the foundation of the Earth.  It is overwhelming to realize the You love and care for me in spite of all I am and do.  How many times have I given in to my fears and run in panic to You or, so much worse, away from You.  Yet, You still rescue me.  What kind of love is this?  Holy Spirit, renew my mind so that my thinking can move from the natural to the supernatural, that I may see with the eyes of Jesus and understand with the Father’s heart.  Teach me to walk fully in Christ, functioning in my perfect place in His Body, equipped with the weapons of His warfare and always choosing His side of every battle, keeping my eyes on Him regardless of the circumstances swirling around me, content to ride out every storm sitting next to You as You sleep in my boat.  Make it so, in the name of Jesus.