Common English Bible (CEB)
Nineveh hears God’s word
3 The Lord’s word came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Get up and go to Nineveh, that great city, and declare against it the proclamation that I am commanding you.” 3 And Jonah got up and went to Nineveh, according to the Lord’s word. (Now Nineveh was indeed an enormous city, a three days’ walk across.) 4 Jonah started into the city, walking one day, and he cried out, “Just forty days more and Nineveh will be overthrown!” 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and put on mourning clothes, from the greatest of them to the least significant.
6 When word of it reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, stripped himself of his robe, covered himself with mourning clothes, and sat in ashes. 7 Then he announced, “In Nineveh, by decree of the king and his officials: Neither human nor animal, cattle nor flock, will taste anything! No grazing and no drinking water! 8 Let humans and animals alike put on mourning clothes, and let them call upon God forcefully! And let all persons stop their evil behavior and the violence that’s under their control!” 9 He thought, Who knows? God may see this and turn from his wrath, so that we might not perish.
10 God saw what they were doing—that they had ceased their evil behavior. So God stopped planning to destroy them, and he didn’t do it.
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Ephesians 3:14-21
Common English Bible (CEB)
Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians
14 This is why I kneel before the Father. 15 Every ethnic group in heaven or on earth is recognized by him. 16 I ask that he will strengthen you in your inner selves from the riches of his glory through the Spirit. 17 I ask that Christ will live in your hearts through faith. As a result of having strong roots in love, 18 I ask that you’ll have the power to grasp love’s width and length, height and depth, together with all believers. 19 I ask that you’ll know the love of Christ that is beyond knowledge so that you will be filled entirely with the fullness of God.
20 Glory to God, who is able to do far beyond all that we could ask or imagine by his power at work within us; 21 glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus for all generations, forever and always. Amen.
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Imagine with me
for a moment that for the last twenty years, you've wanted to visit a
particular beach. Let's say that there are palm trees, white sand,
and little huts on the secluded beach where you imagine yourself. To
you, it's paradise, and nothing could possibly be better. Then,
let's say that you win a trip there, and you discover that it is for
real. You have received a free trip to spend February in this divine
paradise, and you cannot wait.
The only problem
is, let's say you hate flying. Let's imagine that you actively
despise being in a hollow metal tube with wings flying at 30,000 feet
under the command of someone you have never met. You break out in
anxious sweat at the very thought of flying. You do not believe you
can do it, but there is no other way to your beach.
What do you do?
Is it worth the
sacrifice? Or do you give up the dream? Do you go sit at the edge
of the lake at Harrison Bay and accept it as a worthy substitute?
It's a fine place, but it's no beach paradise in February. Do you
accept this because you don't want the unpleasantness of the flight?
Friends, the
abundant life God tells us about is available to each and every one
of us. It is available as a gift from above, yours for the asking.
All you have to do is accept it.
But to get there,
we have to wander through repentance. And no one likes repentance.
It's unpleasant. It's no fun. It's work.
Repentance is the
hard work of asking God to forgive us for our wrongdoings. It's
humbling, because we have to admit that we're imperfect. We have to
admit that we mess up, and that we have done it frequently. You
cannot be proud, because the only way to seek repentance is to to to
God and ask him to forgive you. You can't do repentance alone. God
is required.
So what the Devil
does is convinces us that repentance is too hard, too embarrassing,
and that we don't need it. We take the cheap way out, and in
exchange for the abundant life God gives us, we accept a poor
substitute. The Devil is in the business of selling lies, and
business is good. We believe that the imitation is just as good, and
we convince ourselves that the life we can have without bothering to
repent is fine. This way we don't have to spend all that time in the
unpleasantness of asking God to forgive us. This way, we don't have
to acknowledge how broken we are.
See, we've
believed the lie that God wants to take all these things from us. We
believe that God wants to take the pleasantries out of life. We've
accepted a picture of God that the Puritans gave us, who were once
famously described as a people who were desperately afraid that
'someone, somewhere was having fun'. We get the idea that God is a
divine taker, and that the joy will be sucked out of life if we hand
everything over to his control.
Nothing could be
farther than the truth. God wants to bless us, to open up the
windows of heaven and pour out blessings upon us. God wants our
lives to be rich toward God, to be filled with divine love and grace
and deep relationships. God wants to dwell in our hearts and give us
confidence that nothing in this world can separate us from him. God
wants all these things for us, not from us.
Repentance is the
path toward the abundant life. But it's a hard path, one that
requires humility and demands that we examine our lives and submit
them to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. To practice repentance on a
daily basis certainly isn't going to be fun and exciting, and it
might even cause some anxiety if you have to admit that you aren't
perfect regularly. The Devil will try to tell you that there is a
shortcut.
There isn't.
The Devil tempted
Jesus in the wilderness, trying to convince him that all the glory
and honor could be his, only without the sacrifice. Jesus saw
through the lie.
The Devil will try
and convince you, too, that you can achieve your own security. He'll
try and sell you a cheap substitute, convincing you that the real
thing isn't that great and that it probably isn't achievable anyway.
Don't fall for it.
This Lent, I
invite you into the discipline of daily repentance. Set some time
aside at the end of your day, just before bed, to examine yourself.
Look back over your day. Repent of the things you did that were not
good. Repent of the times you failed to act when you should have.
Hand it all over to God.
In doing so, we
step into the light of love and grace. In doing the hard work of
repentance, the often unpleasant work of repentance, we journey
deeper into the faithful life, and we discover that the love of God
indeed surpasses knowledge.
As Paul says, God
is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think.
Does
that sound like a God who is trying to take things from you? Or a
God who wants to bless, but just needs you to work to remove the
obstacles in your life that are preventing you from living in the
fullness of his love?
Let
us pray
