3 John 1:2-52 Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers. 3 For I rejoiced greatly when brethren came and testified of the truth that is in you, just as you walk in the truth. 4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. 5 Beloved, you do faithfully whatever you do for the brethren and for strangers, 6 who have borne witness of your love before the church
We love others in the love given to us in the truth of Jesus Christ. We want our relationship with God and with others to be filled with peace, good health and we want to be financially able to care for our families and to help others in need. God is LOVE!
The Book of Jonah challenges God’s people not to exalt themselves over others. The Lord, the great King, is free to bless, to be gracious, and to be patient with all the nations of the earth. More than that, He may show compassion even on the wicked. Indeed, His mercy extends even to animals (4:11).
Jonah’s view of God was too restrictive. He believed that God was the Creator of everything, but that He was compassionate only toward the elect of Israel. Jonah believed that since God had chosen Israel from among the wicked nations, He had to show mercy to Israel, even if the people were rebellious. Jonah had failed to appreciate that the Lord may be equally forbearing with other nations as He was with Israel.
The Book of Jonah affirms God’s freedom, sovereignty, and power. God is sovereign because He is the Creator of everything (1:9). His power extends over all creation (the storm, the fish, the vine, the worm). God is free and He can never be bound by human misconceptions. The self-righteous make the grave mistake of rejoicing only in their own deliverance (2:9) and in God’s answers to prayer (4:6). They miss out by narrowing God’s grace and mercy to themselves. Like Jonah, they cannot share in God’s delight in saving the sailors and the city of Nineveh, including infants and even animals (4:11). They confess that God is Creator and King of the whole cosmos, but restrict His involvement to judgment, justice, and retribution. In this manner they do not see His acts of compassion, righteousness, and forbearance.
The Lord’s final proclamation to Jonah (4:10, 11) sums up the prophetic message of the book: God is free to bestow His mercy on anyone and anywhere He wills. His concern and mercy extend to all creation. Jonah’s story contains a strong warning to all godly people. The elect may miss the blessing of seeing God’s grace extended outside their own sphere because of their imposition of limits on God. While Jonah was praying anxiously for his personal deliverance, the sailors had already been experiencing the love of God for three days.
Likewise, the people of Nineveh who repented of their sin rejoiced that the impending judgment had not come. Jonah, however, was miserable. As we laugh at him, we may need to wince at ourselves. Jonah’s silly sin is finally no laughing matter. We are condemned along with him if we share in his provincial folly. The NKJV Study Bible
4:11 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?”
1:9 So he said to them, “I am a Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”
2:9 But I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay what I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.”
4:6 And the Lord God prepared a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be shade for his head to deliver him from his misery. So Jonah was very grateful for the plant.
4:10 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
4:11 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?
Jesus came to Israel in fulfillment of the promises to Abraham. After His resurrection He came to offer salvation to the world that God so loved. (John 3:16) There will be those who have the power in a Church who want to be the center of attention they are controlled by their desire for power and control. Pay them no attention. Those who work in peace and the goodness of God are good. Those who work by their own power and control are not. God is a God of unity not chaos.
God is in the business of saving people…all people and we are His representative.
Jonah was a native of Galilee, 2Ki 14:25. His miraculous deliverance from out of the fish, rendered him a type of our blessed Lord, who mentions it, so as to show the certain truth of the narrative. All that was done was easy to the almighty power of the Author and Sustainer of life. This book shows us, by the example of the Ninevites, how great are the Divine forbearance and long-suffering towards sinners. It shows a most striking contrast between the goodness and mercy of God, and the rebellion, impatience, and peevishness of his servant; and it will be best understood by those who are most acquainted with their own hearts. Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary
2 Kings 14:25 He restored the territory of Israel from the entrance of Hamath to the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the LORD God of Israel, which He had spoken through His servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet who was from Gath Hepher.
Matthew 12:39–41 But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth…
Luke 11:29–32 And while the crowds were thickly gathered together, He began to say, “This is an evil generation. It seeks a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. For as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so also the Son of Man will be to this generation…
Our resources will be adequate if, in the midst of the storms, we affirm who we are, remember what we are here to do, and claim the presence of the One who never leaves us.
And this from Maria Shriver, “Our journalistic mission here at The Sunday Paper is to always rise above the noise, the hatred, the division, and to present viewpoints that help us find a new way forward, that help us move humanity forward… In fact, my friend and colleague who was back in South Carolina with her mom recounted this to me about being in Hurricane Helene’s path: ‘Experiencing something as devastating and sobering as Helene reminded me just how insignificant all the other noise is in the grand scheme of things.’” Sabbath Moments
At the end of the day,
We give thanks for the hours that were given.
The buds that brought beauty to the land
And the vision of a world
Creating
A vision of work to do
Rituals to bring back the hope and the delight
Practices that center the mind in peace
Time that passes so beyond this day and night
We give thanks for the conversations that were
Holy work
Holy hands
Holy ounces of breath in and breath out
And we scatter the rest to the wind
To die back or to create forth
Beauty
Donna Knutson
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