31 - The Divine Reasoning Series

# 31 – The Divine Reasoning

Jonah 4:10-11 - “But the Lord said, ‘You have had pity on the plant for which you have not laboured, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night, 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 and their left – and much livestock?’”

“But the Lord said, ‘You have had pity on the plant for which you have not laboured, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night…”

In our last devotion, we looked at how Jonah preferred death when the Lord removed the plant that offered him shade from the heat of the sun. We looked at how the Lord asked him whether he had a right to think the way he did about the plant and how Jonah had answered in the affirmative, adding that he even had the right to be angry to the point of preferring death to life.

Today we’re going to look at the Lord’s response to Jonah – a thought-provoking response that left him thinking. The Lord begins by recognising Jonah’s feeling of pity on the plant and then goes on to remind him that he had done nothing to plant it or water it. In fact, it was God who miraculously caused the plant to grow overnight and it was God who caused it to wither overnight as well. All Jonah did was enjoy its shade. It’s not sure whether Jonah had realised that fact earlier, but this was the perfect time for him to ponder this fact. If he had done nothing to cause the plant to grow, why was he so concerned when it withered?

Before we begin to condemn Jonah for his attitude, let each of us in The Church stop and search ourselves to check whether we have the same attitude that Jonah had. Do we receive blessings from God, with no work on our part? Yes, we do. The gift of Salvation is the best gift ever one can receive, and we who know the Lord have received this gift without doing anything to receive it.

Jesus lived the righteous life that all of us should have lived, but could not live, He bore the punishment of a shameful and cruel death that each of us should have borne on account of our sin, he was buried, went down into the heart of the earth, and rose again from the dead, and now makes this amazing gift of Salvation available to anyone who will just believe.

The question we need to ask ourselves is, “What did we do?” The answer is, “Nothing.” Jesus did it all – we merely trusted in Him and received this gift free of cost. We’ve been forgiven of our sins, we’ve been adopted into the family of God as His children, possess the freedom to live a sin-free life, have received the gift of the Holy Spirit in our lives to help us live this amazing new life, we’ve received spiritual gifts so we may serve one another in the body of Christ. We’ve been given the eternal hope (assurance) that when we die we will go and live with the Lord forever, (if He does not return to take us home before we die). We’ve received a peace that surpasses human understanding, we’ve experienced and continue to experience God’s amazing love, grace and mercy daily in our lives – if not for which we would have been history a long time back. We’ve received all this and more and all for doing nothing on our part, but for merely believing and trusting in what Jesus has done on our behalf.

“…And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city,

The Lord goes on to tell Jonah that if he feels entitled to anger concerning a plant that he did not plant or take care of, how much more should God, who created the people of Nineveh. Jonah seemed to have forgotten that just as he was created in the image of God, so also were the people of Nineveh created in that same image. Just as God loved him, the Lord loved the people of that great city of Nineveh.

The Lord had caused the plant to appear overnight and shrivel overnight just to make a point to Jonah that he was not entitled to feeling anger concerning the plant, and neither was he entitled to feel anger towards God over relenting from sending His wrath on the people of Nineveh. This is one of the many incidents of Experiential Learning (as we call it today) recorded in the Bible. Sometimes it calls for an activity or an experience to learn a lesson, much better than words alone can teach.