Last Sunday's first reading is from the book of the prophet Jonah. God had called him to
preach repentance to the city of Nineveh. Nineveh was the oldest and greatest city in the Assyrian empire. They were a particularly wicked and brutal people. Yet God wanted to offer them the opportunity to repent and to change. Our Heavenly Father’s love and mercy are so great because He knows the misery and despair that sin causes. He knows how evil-doing breaks hearts and ruins lives. In His love he cannot help but take pity on those who fail to recognize and live in His presence. So He never fails to offer again and again his gift of forgiveness and healing.
The same is true for us today. We have all fallen short of the ideals that Jesus preached. We have all failed to love. And yet we are called by God here to experience His mercy and forgiveness. No matter what we may have done in our past, God can help us overcome it and change us. We should never let guilt and shame over our past mistakes keep us from embracing the love of God today. We cannot change the past, but we can go forward into a future of hope by welcoming the mercy of God into our hearts and allowing it to change us.
Though we can always count on God to forgive us, we should be careful never to abuse His love. How would we feel if the people we loved kept on hurting us because they thought we would always forgive them? Though God is always willing to forgive us, He is offended when we take His love and mercy for granted. That is why Saint Paul warns us in the second reading that our time is running out. Because of His mercy God gives us time to repent, but that time is not as long as we think. We will eventually stand before the judgment seat of God to give an account of our lives and how we have taken advantage of the opportunities to change that He has given us. If we have been putting it off, it will not go well with us. But if we accept the message with joy, we will witness miracles in our lives and stand before God with confidence.
With God there is always hope. He never abandons anyone He has created and redeemed in Christ. There is no heart He cannot touch, no mind He cannot enlighten and no life He cannot change. All we have to do is invite Him in, give Him our lives and let Him take care of the rest. If we trust Him with our lives, not only will we change but He will use us to touch the hearts of others. It is His promise to us in Christ. It can really happen if we repent, believe in the good news and follow Christ who calls us to a new and more abundant life.
(image from Moody Publishing USA)
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