Who is Your Nineveh?

Who is Your Nineveh?

Bomb them all! Send them all back! One death deserves another. Don't take my money and give it to them. I'm not racist, you're a racist!  They don't deserve forgiveness. Why bother?

That is what Jonah would have said about Nineveh. You see these evil ones killed and tortured more people than ISIS. They sinned against God in more ways than a satanist cult. Nahum 3:2 says, "Woe to the city of blood, full of lies, full of plunder, never without victims!"

God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach repentance. He refused. He ran away from God. Tried to anyway. God loved Jonah and wanted to use him. He sent a fish to swallow him and bring him back to his senses.

Jonah could think of so many reasons why he should not go and preach repentance. The Ninevites  didn't deserve forgiveness, his time, or a second chance. He knew God would forgive them if they turned themselves around. To Jonah this did not seem fair to all the good people that had been hurt by these savages.

Jonah did finally preach to Nineveh. The biggest miracle here is not being swallowed by a big fish and living to tell about it, but that these people did repent. All of them, children, parents, they even put sack clothes on their livestock. 

Do you have a Nineveh? Someone that you've written off? Maybe a whole group of people you've heard bad things about and God whispers, "Drop the stone walls and open your heart." It could be someone on the other side of your politics, or a noisy neighbor you can't get along with. Can you let down your guard enough to share a conversation? 

Though this theme is not exactly where Pastor Greg lead us that day in his sermon, here is where I went with it. 

Love you enemies. Pray for those that persecute you. (disagree, or call you names.) Love your neighbor, like you love yourself. (Not just the kind ones, either. Or the ones that voted like you.) Press on in genuine love, mercy, and seek justice.  Yes, always, seek justice by being slow to judge and quick to listen when prejudices are uncovered or the hurt are crying for help.