“Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: ‘Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.’ Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD.”
Jonah 3:1-3
Maybe you are like me and first heard this story when you were a young child in Sunday School. It held such fascination, didn’t it? It still is speaking pointedly to us today in its four brief chapters. God called Jonah to bring His word to the evil Ninevites —about the last sort of people the prophet Jonah felt like ministering to. So he boarded a ship in the opposite direction and figured he was in the clear until God intervened with a storm, an overboard toss, and a capture in the belly of a great fish.
What lengths God will go to in rescuing His disobedient servants! Jonah did repent, after which God sent him again to deliver His message. And this time he obeyed. The result was astonishing repentance from the people. Can you see the Lord’s grace and deliverance on display in this story of His reluctant ambassador?
We are saved by God’s grace and then assigned as His ambassadors to do good works. Sometimes that means going to unfriendly and unlikable people. But that shouldn’t deter us. After all, Christ died for us while we were yet sinners (see Romans 5:8).
What lengths God will go to in rescuing His disobedient servants! Jonah did repent, after which God sent him again to deliver His message. And this time he obeyed. The result was astonishing repentance from the people. Can you see the Lord’s grace and deliverance on display in this story of His reluctant ambassador?
We are saved by God’s grace and then assigned as His ambassadors to do good works. Sometimes that means going to unfriendly and unlikable people. But that shouldn’t deter us. After all, Christ died for us while we were yet sinners (see Romans 5:8).
Scripture Focus
Jonah 3:1-10
Insight
As followers of Jesus, our lives must radiate expressions of our faith, even to those who would be likely to refuse it.
Bible In A Year
- Isaiah 1-2
- Psalm 73
- John 13