Then God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?” And he said, “It is right for me to be angry, even unto death!” But the Lord said, “You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left – and much livestock?” Jonah 4:9-11
Too many times I have placed more value on things than on the souls of the lost. I don’t remember ever being angry because God saved someone but that is small consolation when my concern for the lost is so often eclipsed by my desire for personal comfort. I look at Jonah’s reaction to Nineveh’s redemption and I am shocked and dismayed and yet at the same time there is a glaring inconsistency in my life.
I do not consistently value the lost above my job or my reputation or my physical comfort.
Immediately I hear someone say, (or was it my own sinful heart), “You don’t really expect me to risk my job for some person’s eternal soul do you? After all I must keep food on the table for my children.” Or, “If I become known as a religious freak, no one will listen to me; I can’t risk my reputation.” Or, “You know, pointing out to someone that they are a sinner makes me so uncomfortable I don’t see how it can possibly be what God has called me to do.”
I can imagine that some or all of these arguments might have been in Jonah’s mind as he fled toward Tarshish. We need to take whatever fear, or “logical” argument we are making to ourselves that is keeping us from opening our mouth for Jesus, and place it beside the specter of an eternity in the Lake of Fire. That trumps all the excuses. What value do we place on a soul?
For His Glory
Your brother Jack
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