As we continue our lenten journey, it’s so easy to dwell much on the observances-prayer, almsgiving and fasting. But the story of Jonah and the Ninevites reminds us that repentance touches the heart of God when our hearts are not only sorry for how we have disobeyed God and displayed ingratitude to Him for His many blessings; but when they become resolved to change course and we deliberately stop making choices that are contrary to God’s desires.
An obviously prayerful, generous, fasting man with a sorrowful heart crying for God’s mercy, who does not intend to stop cheating and lying after receiving said mercy, is only mocking God. We consider him holy, but God discerns from his heart that he has no intention of turning back from the sins he commits regularly, not to talk of making restitution for them. What God sees in man is oftentimes different from what man sees.
In the story of Jonah and the Ninevites, we read in Jon 3:10 – When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.
Perhaps if we had more details in that story, we would have been told that even as they fasted, prayed and put on ashes, the Ninevites began to correct their way of living. The gossips, the liars and flatterers, the corrupt, the proud, the thieves, the slanderers, the adulterers – all admitted their faults to God and resolved to begin to do the opposite of what they had been doing with the help of the Holy Spirit. They had a change of heart that corresponded to their outward observances of remorse.
When God sees us turning away from any of our sinful and wicked ways, His heart is touched and He relents from teaching us a lesson. We may yet fall again but because He understands our hearts, He encourages us with token graces. He has given up His Son as an atonement for our sins and sent us His Spirit to help us do the right thing, He expects us to freely choose to give Him our hearts. Afterall, to whom much is given, much is expected. May we gladly present our contrite hearts to God and allow Him to gradually mould them to become hearts like His.
As I live!’ declares the Lord God, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways!..as for the wickedness of the wicked, he will not stumble because of it in the day when he turns from his wickedness;…....if a wicked man restores a pledge, pays back what he has taken by robbery, walks by the statutes which ensure life without committing iniquity, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of his sins that he has committed will be remembered against him. He has practiced justice and righteousness; he shall surely live…. Ezekiel 33:11,12,15-16
Hilltop Thoughts, Valley Strengths 