God's perspective
When we think about forgiveness and the idea of God wanting to forgive people through His Son we often think about the people around us who we like and that are, by our standards, good people. We might think something like: “They are good and decent people, if they would just turn to God, He would be happy to forgive them.” There are other people however that we may not have the same thoughts about. When we watch the news and see senseless crimes in our area and around the world we might think something like “These people are a waste of skin and they will never turn to God”. Seeing God’s offer of forgiveness this way causes us to miss a huge lesson about who God is. My favorite story from scripture about this topic comes from Jonah:
Jonah 3:6-4:4
"When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.” When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened. But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing 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. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?”
Many of us are familiar with the Old Testament story of Jonah. God wanted him to go warn the Ninevites about the destruction that He was about to bring upon them because of their sin (Jonah 1:2). Jonah, however, had other plans and tried to run from God because he did not want to have anything to do with the plan to save the Ninevites. Eventually, Jonah ended up going to the city anyway and after Ninevites heard his message they all repented of their sin and turned towards God. One very important fact about this story is who the Ninevites are, or rather, who they aren’t. They are not part of the Israelite Nation and therefore, are outside of God’s “chosen people”. On top of that Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria, one of Israel’s enemies and not well-liked. They were also known as evil people (Jonah 3:10).
One of the amazing things we need to see from this great book is how God views the Ninevites. God had planned to destroy the Ninevites because of their sin so it becomes clear to us that God was not happy with their actions and their distance from Him. The amazing thing though is that He still sends Jonah to them to warn them of the judgement that was about to come down on them. We see at the end of the book why God sent Jonah. Jonah 4:11 says “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?” You see, even though the Ninevites were far from God and not part of His “chosen people” He still cared for their souls enough to show them love by sending Jonah.
This story should cause us to re-think how we view those around us – particularly those people we don’t like. After the Ninevites repented and God withdrew His destruction, Jonah was furious. He wanted nothing more than to “watch them burn” because of their sin and didn’t care a bit about helping them to follow God. The Lord's response was “Is it right for you to be angry?”
It’s good for us to be upset about the sin in this world and we should speak up about injustices but our goal should be to show love instead of hate. Love will drive us to help those around us who need to hear the truth so they can repent. Hate will drive us to have an attitude like Jonah, cheering on their destruction. We need to see things from God’s perspective.