Have you ever asked, “What does God want from me?” It is one of life’s most important questions. After all, if there is a God, nothing matters more than knowing Him and knowing what He requires from us.
When Jonah was about to die inside a “great fish,” he asked God to rescue Him. God saved him and told him to go to Ninevah and preach as he had been instructed previously—before Jonah ran from God and ended up fish food. Jonah obeyed.
When Jonah preached that God was about to destroy the evil city of Ninevah, its citizens realized they were about to die. Like Jonah in the fish, they too repented of their sins and begged God to save them.
“Then God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways—so God relented from the disaster He had threatened to do to them” Jonah 3:10.
Jonah sinned, repented, and God rescued him. The Ninevites sinned, repented, and God rescued them. They have a lot in common.
But Jonah hated the Ninevites and wanted God to destroy them. “Jonah was greatly displeased and became furious … ‘And now Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live’” Jonah 4:1 and 3.
Jonah may have been God’s prophet (though a reluctant prophet at best). But the pagan people of Ninevah understood pure repentance better than he did. When you repent and come to God for salvation, you let go of EVERYTHING. Let go of the hate, the bitterness, the grudges, the feuds. God rescues Jonah from the fish, and the man gets so mad when the Ninevites respond to his preaching that he wants to die? Are you kidding me?
From the belly of the fish Jonah may have asked himself, ‘What does God want from me?’ but he did not give God everything. He did not surrender ALL of his heart, otherwise God would have changed it.
Have you asked “What does God want from me?” Here is the answer:
“He has told you oh man, what is good. And what doth the Lord require from you, but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God” Micah 6:8.
Jonah failed to love mercy and walk humbly. Ask yourself whether you are doing the three things God requires.
*The phrase the Micah Mandate appears to be the creation of George Grant, author of the book, THE MICAH MANDATE: BALANCING THE CHRISTIAN LIFE.
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