The Wideness of God's Mercy

Jonah 3:10; Lamentations 3:22-23; II Peter 3:9

When the LORD God shows mercy, we often decide that the recipients do not deserve it and we get angry because we believe that God should punish people more than what He does.  Let’s look at this.

In the book of Jonah, we see that the Lord God has sent Jonah to a town called Ninevah to preach a revival.  He is depending on Jonah to get the Ninevites to repent for their wicked behavior and to get into right standing with Him.  Jonah avoids the assignment, not out of fear but out of his belief that these people needed to be destroyed because God told Jonah that if they did not repent, He would destroy the Ninevites.  After being swallowed by a big fish and experiencing other stuff because he was running, Jonah decides to be obedient and to preach the revival.  The Ninevites were actually convicted of their sinfulness, they repented and they were spared.  That should have been a great thing.  But no, Jonah crashed out, angry because the people repented and didn’t get destroyed.  God had to give Jonah some straightening, reminding Him that  it was His business who He saved and

We stay in God’s business, deciding who are and are not people of faith.  We stay telling people who they should be and what they should be doing without looking at our own hearts and at our own relationships.  Jonah was a hater, point blank period. He would have punished the Ninevites regardless of what they did because he thought they were bad people who deserved punishment.  But aren’t we glad that God doesn’t see things the way we do? Jonah does have some “Karen-ish” tendencies, but we won’t talk about that today. 

God understood that we would forever be liable and punishable for our sins, and that the old system of sacrificing animals was not going to be enough (Hebrews 9:7-9).  The LORD God decided that Jesus would be the ultimate sacrifice and sent him down to take on the sin debt and eliminate it forever (Hebrews 9:11-15). He was our payment for sin and He paid for our sins by being offered up in a horrible death on Calvary’s cross (Romans 8: 1-4). 

Thank God that He loves us more than we can imagine (Romans 8:37-39). Because if it wasn’t for His love and His mercy towards us, we would have been destroyed a long time ago (Lamentations 3:23).  Glory to the LORD God for His mercy and for His amazing love!