HAVE YOU EVER...loved your enemy?

But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.  Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.  Luke 6:35

At school, we just talked about how disobeying God is doing the opposite of what he wants us to do.  It is not easy to do what God wants us to do all of the time.  Especially, when God calls us to love our enemy or even just our neighbor.  Even so, God works in our lives even when we tell him no.  We can learn about this from Jonah.  My favorite part of the Jonah story is how the people on the boat learned about the one true God when he caused the storm and miraculously stopped it too. 

There is more.  Jonah is a prime example of crabby obedience.  I find myself saying yes to God, but griping the whole time too.  Jonah preached to the Ninevites and they were forgiven, even though they didn’t deserve it.  Then Jonah goes and pouts about it.  God sends a plant to shade him in his sulking, and then sends a worm to kill it too. 

I have a terrible green thumb.  My green thumb is nonexistent.  I kill all plants.  When I try to grow them or people give them to me, they don’t last long.  I have a few plants around my house that are HEARTY!  I don’t know why they are still alive.  Every time my mom visits she says, your plants need watering.  Even my youngest son has started to take the initiative. 

God tells Jonah that he did nothing to keep the plant alive!  He did not plant it or grow it himself.  Why was he so upset?  He was having crabby obedience. 

Then the LORD said, “You feel sorry about the plant, though you did nothing to put it there.  It came quickly and died quickly.  But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals.  Shouldn’t I feel sorry for such a great city?”

JONAH 4:10-11 NLT

Most translations say that the people of Nineveh couldn’t even tell their left from their right, comparing them to children.  Would you wish harm on children?  Shouldn’t we be seeking people out like this?

God calls us to obey him.  God calls us to love everyone. 

God calls us to preach his word to EVERYONE!  God calls us to do it with joy!

HAVE YOU EVER had joyful obedience?

Psalm 16:9, Luke 15:7