“And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

God’s question never really is answered by Jonah, did you notice that? It stands as a reminder that God is concerned not only with Christians, but non-Christians and those who are backslidden and away from the Lord.

Israel was appointed to enlighten the Gentiles to spiritual truth, but failed.  They didn’t tell anyone the good news. They wanted to keep it to themselves.  Is that compassion? Is that heart? Do they really care for others, if they have the truth and don’t share it? What other great cities as well as individuals need to know how to get saved? Whose job is it to tell?      

I think the reason that the story doesn’t tell us what Jonahs’s response was that wasn’t important. The question isn’t how did Jonah react, but rather how does the reader react to God’s question? Do you have a heart? This message is for us.          

Jonah stayed in his shaded seat and waiting for God to come around to his way of thinking. God is still waiting for a host of Jonah’s in their comfortable homes to come around to His way of loving.          

Ian Pitt-Watson told about an object that had no intrinsic worth, yet it was greatly loved. His daughter, Rosemary, had a rag doll. Though dirty and threadbare, it was Rosemary's most precious possession. When Ian and his family prepared to leave Scotland and come to America, each family member chose possessions to bring. Rosemary chose just one article - her rag doll.

Ian Pitt-Watson tells the story of his little girl. He writes, "There is a natural, logical kind of love that loves lovely things and lovely people. That’s logical. But there is another kind of love that doesn’t look for value in what it loves, but that creates value in what it loves. Like Rosemary’s rag doll.

“When Rosemary, my youngest child, was three, she was given a little rag doll, which quickly became an inseparable companion. She had other toys that were intrinsically far more valuable, but none that she loved like she loved the rag doll. Soon the rag doll became more and more rag and less and less doll. It also became more and more dirty. If you tried to clean the rag doll, it became more ragged still. And if you didn’t try to clean the rag doll, it became dirtier still. The sensible thing to do was to trash the rag doll. But that was unthinkable for anyone who loved my child. If you loved Rosemary, you loved the rag doll — it was part of the package."

It doesn’t make sense, but God loves dirty, ragged sinners, and you can’t separate him from them any more than you could separate Rosemary from her rag doll.

God's love is so deep He sacrificed His Son to save us. Does that make sense?

Prayer:  Oh Father, how it melts my heart as I think that even when we sin...and while we were still sinners, You sent Your Son to die for us.   Even as we fall into sin now, You continually cleanse us.   

Dale