Stumbling Toward Obedience: Learning from Jonah's Failure to Love God and the People He Came to Save

Jesus demonstrated complete submission to the Father's will to the point of His confident assertion, "I always do those things that please My Father" (John 8:29). He gave Himself in humility at Calvary to satisfy God's wrath against all sin, as well as all sinners, and declared from the cross, "It is finished." He then experienced death but rose in victory over death, thus proving His claims to divinity and giving to all His spiritual descendants resurrection power for daily living.

So what is to be our response to all Christ Jesus is and all that He has suffered and accomplished on our behalf? What should be our life's focus, our objective, our agenda, and our passion? Obedience to the things our Lord and Savior has commanded. Obedience is our duty, to be sure, but it is more than that. It is the way we express our thanksgiving for what Christ has done for us. It is gratefulness lived out on a daily basis. This kind of living involves a consistent orientation toward laying aside personal or selfish desires and agendas that bring us temporal gratification. Instead, we embrace what Jesus Christ tells us to do: to proclaim the gospel of hope to those who know it not. This is the highest expression of gratefulness from a life made new by the living Lord.

Your culture, your communities, your friends, your co-workers, and your family members need to hear a word from God. You and I are the delivery persons for God's message. We are the spokespersons for the gospel of Jesus Christ! We are the ones to whom God has said, "Arise, go to Nineveh." Our Nineveh, dear people of God, is the lost people around us.