If Not For God’s Mercy
Scripture Passage:
Jonah 3: 4-9
4 And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day’s walk. Then he cried out and said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”
5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. 6 Then word came to the king of Nineveh; and he arose from his throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes. 7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; do not let them eat, or drink water. 8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God; yes, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. 9 Who can tell if God will turn and relent, and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we may not perish?
Jonah 4:11
11And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?
Mercy! This is one attribute of God that we all benefit from today. Without the mercy of God upon our lives, we will not be where we are today. It’s so easy to get into what I call the “Mercy Routine” and not really understanding what it means to have God’s mercy. Someone who went into a willful sin of disobedience can do it willingly because they know that at the end of it all, they can just ask for God’s mercy and God will give them another chance. One thing that we all need to understand this week is that God is a merciful God and He is equally a God of judgment.
Looking at the book of Jonah, there is a lot we can learn about the merciful nature of God. Despite the fact that Jonah refused to fulfill the assignment that God gave him initially to the people of Nineveh because of His own personal opinion of what God should do, in order for Him to understand the mercy of God, he found himself in the belly of a fish. The belly of the fish can represent some of the situations that some of us are passing through today. Over the past week, God has been speaking about the consequences of falling out of the will of God for our lives. When we walk out of the will of God, sometimes God can put us through some experiences that will definitely teach us obedience and this is what happened in the life of Jonah. We need to come to a perfect understanding that it’s part of the merciful nature of God that He communicates the affairs of our lives to us and we should never take this grace for granted.
So, after Jonah delivered this message that God sent him to deliver to the people of Nineveh, they didn’t receive the words in pride or haughtiness. Despite the fact that it states in Chapter 4:11 that this people cannot discern their right from their left, they knew to cry out mightily, and they still knew to declare a fast for their sins of wickedness. The way the people of Nineveh reacted to the words Jonah spoke to them from the Lord allowed God to stay action and as a result, MERCY REJOICED OVER JUDGMENT. The way we react to the words of correction and sin is very important. When we know we have sinned against God, we don’t need to justify our actions because in Jonah 2:8 it states, they that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. I really pondered on this verse and I came to the conclusion that I don’t want to forsake my own mercy. So, some of the reasons why some people forsake their own mercy is because they observe these lying vanities. So what are some of these lying vanities, it can self righteousness, pride, not having godly sorrow, self justification, blaming others for our actions, taking God’s grace for granted, public opinion, stubbornness/rebellion, lack of respect for the word of God, and not having no respect for the people God sends to correct us.
Let us not get into the habit of having someone to convince us to ask for God’s mercy. Mercy should come to us easily and we shouldn’t get into that habit at all because we don’t want to forsake our own mercy. So this week, take sometime to thank God for His mercy upon you and your entire household. If not for His mercy, we would have been consumed!
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