Running from God

God calls Jonah to leave his country and go to Nineveh, Israel’s enemy, to preach against it. Jonah refuses to go and runs in the opposite direction. Many Christians are upset that we live in such a lost and depraved society, and we pull away from it even when God calls us to reach out to love and share God’s gospel with them. We seem content to sit back and condemn it rather than reaching out and engaging it. It appears that we hope they will receive God’s judgment instead of His mercy. Jonah’s refusal to follow God’s will and run will bring him and others great danger. We lose when we refuse to reach out to those around us. The message of God’s grace, love, and mercy must be made available to the entire world. Yet we turn away from those who need it most. There are those around us who are far from God and very different from us. God cares deeply about how we relate to and treat those not like us. God calls us to treat those who are from other races and religions in respectful, loving, generous, and just ways. Jonah is refusing; what are we doing?

Running from God