Stay focused on what matters!
(This week’s devotions are based on Sunday’s message: Grace for All…Grace Upsets- LISTEN HERE)
Jonah 4:10 But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11 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?”
Should the Lord have concern?
The book of Jonah ends with this question the Lord poses to Jonah.
Jonah was concerned about the vine that he neither planted nor made it grow, but was upset when it died.
The Lord was concerned with the salvation of Nineveh…all of them.
What’s the point?
It’s easy to get concerned about the blessings the Lord chooses to give and fail to give attention to the thing that really matters…the salvation of souls.
What are the vines or blessings in disguise that have popped up in your life over even the first six months of this year?
I will let you answer that question, because the next question perhaps is more important. Have those blessings taken your attention away from what is most important…your relationship and your family’s relationship with the Lord? Have those blessings prevented you from engaging in spiritual activities that strengthen your faith or that of those around you?
Would you be upset if those blessings were gone? Probably, right? Blessed with a promotion and raise…that’s great…only to have a few weeks later the company downsize and find yourself unemployed. Blessed with health and vitality that allows you to run a marathon or play hard with your grandchildren…only to have a few weeks later a diagnosis of a terminal illness. Blessed with a friendship that came out of nowhere and enjoying time with that person…only to have a job transfer separate you from them.
It’s easy to get upset at God when the blessings he allows in our life drift away.
But God hasn’t forgotten you or cursed you. Perhaps…perhaps…like Jonah he removes the blessing of the “vine” to get Jonah to focus on the bigger purpose and plan of the Lord: The salvation of souls.
Jonah was mad that the Lord spared Nineveh. The Lord was overjoyed that the people of Nineveh responded to the message of Jonah. The angels were partying in heaven because people were turning from sin to their Savior.
The vine was temporary. The conversion of hearts was eternal.
Jonah was focused on the temporary. The Lord was focused on the eternal.
The Lord removed the temporary to help JOnah focus on what was eternal.
The Lord can do the same in our lives today.
So when the vine withers in your life, don’t get angry like Jonah. Be glad that while the little things in life are also a concern for the Lord (after all he allowed the vine to grow), he is much more interested in the things that impact lives for eternity: the salvation of souls.
So enjoy the little blessings. But don’t get upset when they are gone because the Lord is simply reminding you that the biggest blessing he gives is not one that is temporary, but that which is eternal.
Apply: What temporary blessing do you have and enjoy that perhaps is distracting you from nurturing the eternal relationship you have with Jesus?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for your gifts of grace that bring blessing to my earthly life. When you choose to remove them, forgive me for getting upset and rather point my heart to what truly matters and lasts forever: the salvation of my soul. AMEN.
Crave grace!
(This week’s devotions are based on Sunday’s message: Grace for All…Grace Upsets- LISTEN HERE)
I crave grace.
I am not perfect. I fail. I don’t meet expectations. I have a lot of opportunities to grow as a person and as a Christian. I repeat activities or lack of activities that I should stop or start doing…and wish I could always get it right.
I crave grace.
I crave the forgiveness of people to recognize my human weakness and my sinful nature. I crave forgiveness when I fail, even when it’s the 100th time. I crave grace that is freely given and not deserved or earned.
Because living without grace is living in fear of the next mistake, in fear of failing, in fear of ruining relationships.
I crave grace.
Grace is not an excuse to continue in the sin that plagues you. It’s not the cover for complacency or lack of learning and growing and getting better. Grace is not a license to be selfish and demand others adapt and adjust and then forgive your intentional and willful sin. Grace is not a pass to cash in when you want to give in to your sinful nature.
I crave grace not only to cover my failures but to motivate the improvement and change that is desired. Grace communicates confidence that change can take place. Grace communicates that failing forward is an option. Grace communicates the relationship is what is most important.
Not only do I crave grace…but my guess is you do too.
The blessings and benefits of God’s grace are exactly what we need and exactly what he gives. But I don’t want to just receive them from God, I want to freely give the same grace I have received to the people in my life.
Your spouse…needs God’s grace AND your grace. Your kids need God’s grace AND your grace. Your coworkers, friends and classmates need God’s grace AND your grace. Your church family needs God’s grace AND your grace. Even the person who is mean on social media, cuts you off in traffic or acts rude at a kids sporting event needs God’s grace and your grace.
Grace comes from a heart of love. It is God’s kind of love. It is God’s love that sent Jesus into the world as the epitome of grace and the greatest gift of grace. God’s grace looks like what the Apostle Paul wrote of in 1 Corinthians 13:
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Without grace, we become just the opposite…impatient, unkind, jealous, rude, prideful, demeaning to others, self-centered, quick to anger, keep a record of wrongs, deceitful, skeptical, hopeless and feeling like giving up.
I don’t want any of that.
It’s why I crave grace.
Apply: Why do you crave grace? What can you do to show grace more to others?
Prayer: Lord thank you for freely giving the grace I crave. Spirit of God, empower me to show the same grace to the people in my life. AMEN.
I DESERVE grace!
(This week’s devotions are based on Sunday’s message: Grace for All…Grace Upsets- LISTEN HERE)
Grace is upsetting when someone receives it that we don’t think deserves it.
Grace is also upsetting when WE don’t receive it when we think we deserve it.
I remember a member of a previous congregation who also delivered FedEx to our home. After not seeing him for a while at church I happened to be home when he delivered a package. As we briefly interacted he shared some of the life and relationship challenges he was going through and said, “I think God needs to throw me a bone. I don’t deserve all this.”
He was upset because he felt deserved a blessing of grace from God in his life and was upset that God, in his opinion and perspective, was withholding it.
Have you ever felt the same? We love when the Lord allows blessing to come in our lives. We love when life is without conflict. We love when finances are plentiful. We love when our health is great.
But when it goes away? We get upset. We get depressed. We get angry at God.
We wouldn’t be the first. The prophet Jonah, while upset that God had shown grace to Nineveh, he was hoping that God would change his mind and allow the judgment to come on Nineveh. So…
5 Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. 6 Then the LORD God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine. 7 But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”
9 But God said to Jonah, “Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?”
“I do,” he said. “I am angry enough to die.”
Jonah was happy when the Lord blessed him with the vine and upset when it was taken away. We don’t know Jonah’s thoughts exactly, but when the vine withered, he was upset. He was upset when the blessing was taken away…angry enough to die.
The blessing of the Lord is the grace of the Lord. These blessings, as we want to define them, are gifts from God. When and how he chooses to give them are his prerogative. While we think we deserve them, we don’t. While we think we have the right to dictate the blessings God should give us, we don’t.
The reality is that any blessing we receive is a gift of grace and even the situation God allows that we don’t like can be a way that the Lord gives us blessings.
Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Admittedly it is hard to receive what God allows and see it as a blessing, when we don’t like or enjoy what is happening. But here’s the truth.
God will always give what is best for his children and this is a result of his grace.
We must repent of feeling we deserve God’s blessing and getting upset when the blessing we want is withheld.
Do we have any right to be angry about the vine?
Nope. We don’t.
Apply: When have you felt upset about God withdrawing or not giving a blessing? Afterwards did you see a blessing in what you received?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for all the blessings you give, even the ones I don’t always perceive as blessings. AMEN.
Grace is unfair.
(This week’s devotions are based on Sunday’s message: Grace for All…Grace Upsets- LISTEN HERE)
We love grace and generosity when it it shown to us…we get upset when someone else receives generosity.
As a kid, when it was our birthday we loved generosity. Until it was a friends birthday and we got upset that we didn’t get a present too.
We love when we get a bonus for a year of hard work, but get upset when an individual who we perceive didn’t work as hard gets the same or bigger bonus.
We were happy with the salary we agreed to work for until we find out someone doing the same job is getting 25% more than we are.
We naturally put a judgment on grace and generosity because we naturally attach our effort to someone else’s generosity. We create a story in our mind that we have really worked hard for what we have and its not fair if someone else receives more simply because the giver wanted to give that person more.
It happens with God’s grace too. We subconsciously are trying to “justify” in our own minds the reality that we deserve the grace of God. We want to feel content that our contribution has made us worthy of receiving God’s forgiveness. It is natural to do this…but very, very dangerous.
The first danger is it shifts our hearts from relying on the grace of God to relying on our performance as a person. When we shift this way, we are obligated to be perfect or face eternal separation from God. That’s a disastrous shift.
The second danger is we get angry when someone receives the grace of God that we have determined hasn’t worked as hard or as long as we have. When we have determined someone is a spiritual mess and doesn’t deserve forgiveness, we subtly muse disapproval when they come to trust Jesus as Savior…as if their past doesn’t matter. (Which it doesn’t when it is covered by Jesus’ blood.)
Jesus wanted to guard the hearts of his followers to realize that the fact they were part of God’s kingdom was due to the generosity of Jesus, not their performance. And when others were invited into that kingdom of grace, we ought not be upset when God chooses to be generous with them.
Matthew 20: 1-16 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
3 “About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went.
“He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. 6 About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
7 “ ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
9 “The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
13 “But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
Apply: What seems “unfair” about how God deals with others? How does it make you feel? Spend time today listing the ways that God has been generous and gracious to you!
Prayer: Lord, thank you for your grace and generosity for all people, especially for me. Forgive me for thinking I’ve deserved it more than another person. Lead me to rejoice as you do over the one who receives your grace. AMEN.
Why is it hard to rejoice when good things happen to other people?
(This week’s devotions are based on Sunday’s message: Grace for All…Grace Upsets- LISTEN HERE)
Why is it hard to rejoice when good things happen to other people?
If you had siblings, do you remember the birthday of your brother or sisters being a sad day? Do you remember being disappointed when they got all the attention and you didn’t…even though you got your special day on your birthday?
Do you remember when you were older and a classmate got an award you were working hard to achieve or a teammate got a starting position on the team you thought you were going to get?
Do you remember in your working career hearing of a coworker receiving a promotion to a position you thought you were going to be next in line to receive?
How did you feel?
Perhaps a few of you were genuinely able to rejoice and be happy for your sibling, classmate or coworker…but…
I would guess that many of us (and I will include myself) struggle at times to celebrate the wins of other people…especially when we thought WE deserved the recognition, position or promotion more than they did.
Therein lies the problem.
To be sure there are times when injustice occurs, but often it is an injustice WE have determined occurred even though we are not the ones responsible for determining the position or promotion. We just think THEY don’t deserve it as much as WE do.
As we finish the book of Jonah this week, this is an attitude the prophet Jonah wrestled with. With little effort on Jonah’s part, the WHOLE city of Nineveh repented and the Lord did not bring the disaster he had threatened. You would think that there would be rejoicing in Jonah’s heart, hugs to the king of Nineveh and a parade praising the mercy and grace of God.
Nope.
Here’s what happened:
4 But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. 2 He prayed to the LORD, “O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. 3 Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
4 But the LORD replied, “Have you any right to be angry?” (Jonah 4:1-4)
Jonah knew that the Lord was compassionate and his grace would prevail when the hearts of the people of Nineveh repented…but he was hoping the Lord wouldn’t. Why? I just believe he just wanted the people of Nineveh to experience the wrath of God. He didn’t think they deserved grace because they were enemies of God’s people and their wickedness was great.
But that’s exactly what grace is.
God’s love shown that is NOT deserved. And it is completely in the realm of God’s heart to distribute and show his grace.
Jonah wasn’t partying, but the angels in heaven were over the many in Nineveh who repented.
Luke 15:10 In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Nineveh had repented. That was a great thing.
Our hearts need to repent when our self-righteous pride gets in the way of rejoicing when blessing comes to others…especially the blessing of God’s grace.
Apply: What makes it hard for you to rejoice at the success of others? At the grace of God that comes to others?
Prayer: Lord, forgive me for discounting your grace when you choose to show it to others. Help me to realize your grace is not deserved but given…even to me. AMEN.