Mercy

Jonah ran. God pursued. God did not pursue in order to give Jonah his due. He did not pursue just so that Jonah would confess he was sinful. God did not merely want an admission of guilt and rebellion.

No.

God wanted Jonah.

God wanted to show his grace and mercy.

Confession is not an end in and of itself in God’s plan, but a means to restoration.

“So that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:7).

“But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life” (1 Tim. 1:16).

Do we sometimes put the emphasis on the confession, as if that were an ends? Drag ourselves hangdog to God?

Yet, GRACE. As Anthony Carter writes, “The reason that God won’t let you stay in your sin is that He delights for you to delight in his grace. The reason you can’t outrun your sin is that God is determined to catch you and show you that you can’t outrun his grace.”

God’s conviction is not for misery, but mercy. His hounding out our sin is for healing. It is painful in the moment, and never what we want. But see beyond--that is not his end. In Christ, he sees beyond your sin, beyond you as a sinner, but sees his Son being worked out in you, even if it is not as straight as we might have wished.

We are all Jonahs--and Anthony Carter in Running from Mercy convinces us we are. But the focus of his book is on God. God is bigger--bigger than our rebellion, running, sin, circumstances, events, fishes, death, attitudes, etc. This God is a God who pursues, not just us, but the whole world. And he pursues to show grace.

His grace.

Receive grace.

Read my full review on Anthony Carter’s Running from Mercy here. 

"I received this copy from the publisher in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review."