Will you go?

                                

Jonah 1-4    Jonah is not only a Hebrew but also a Hebrew who worships the Lord, the God of heaven. Yet, Jonah is a picture of the selfish racial condemnation of others. God said in Isaiah, who will go for us and Isaiah said, “send me.” Yet, Jonah hearing that same call turns a blind eye and says, “send another, not me.” Does this sound familiar? Do we have excuses why we do not say “send me?” Look within and see why we take a ship to Tarshish and sleep away the opportunities God has placed before us. We are the Jonahs of today with our plethora of excuses.

Yet as the Psalmist said, “The Lord is merciful and fair; our God is compassionate.” [Ps 116:5] He will not relent when He has a plan to send men/women to the lost fields of Nineveh to bring them hope and the message of salvation. He may send a fish or a neighbor, or another believer to accost us in our tracks and redirect us to the lost. God is the antithesis of Jonah, and we are to be His messengers of hope as He is the God of hope.

Where is God directing you this day? To whom will you bring the message of God’s love and hope?

The God I serve!

God inspects before He judges

Jeremiah 5/Gen 18 Have you ever felt the deepness of a heart’s sadness? The world seems shattered, and the residents see death all around them. At times like this, our words lay fallow in our prayers—or so we think. We wonder, as Jeremiah did, Is there any good news, or Is it all bad news? But step aside and listen: God asks Jeremiah to go and “See if you can find a single person who deals honestly and tries to be truthful. If you can, then I will not punish this city.” [Jer 5:1] Does this ring a bell about another story with a similar thread? In Gen 18, Abraham and the Lord God conversed about Sodom and Gomorrah. Our merciful God had quietly shared with Abraham: “I must go down and see if they are as wicked as the outcry suggests; if NOT, I want to know.” [Gen 18:20-21]

By definition, we say one of God’s characteristics is His omniscience. God is “compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness and truth.” [Ps 145:8] Because He is that and more and not an arbitrary idol god, He always thoroughly investigates a situation before passing judgment and sending calamity. He judges the evidence just as a judge does in a courtroom. God does the same for each of us. Are you thankful today that God judges righteously and not capriciously?

How grateful I am to serve God with these character qualities; How about you?   

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