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The prayer of the prophet Daniel imploring God’s mercy invites us to question every movement of self-righteousness we experience.  It is one thing to understand that we ourselves are sinners, another thing to feel and exert compassion for our sinning neighbors, and still another to implore God’s mercy and forgiveness on us all together as the body of Christ.  Confessing our sin – as in the sin of the community, the people of God, is the place where humility and compassion come together.  In an age of individualism, we could see repentance as an act where it is every man for himself.  We could understand the “one soul that I need to convert,” as my own in a very self-centered sort of way. read more

Quotes:

“Committed. How much I like that word! We children of God freely put ourselves under an obligation to live a life of dedication to God, striving that He may have complete and absolute sovereignty over our lives”

“The Mosaic law does not speak about physically hurting your enemy but about hating your enemy. But if you merely hate him, you have hurt yourself more in the spirit than you have hurt him in the flesh. Perhaps you don’t harm him at all by hating him. But you surely tear yourself apart. If then you are benevolent to an enemy, you have rather spared yourself than him. And if you do him a kindness, you benefit yourself more than him.” read more

The sign of Jonah is a bitter pill for the leaders of the Jews to swallow.  The Ninevites were not Jews, they had not received the help and the revelation of God as His own people.  Jeremiah provides an abundance of suggestions about how the people of Israel should go about things in order to repent.  Fasting, weeping, humbling oneself, turning away from wrongdoing, etc, a whole litany of suggestions.  Israel seldom takes that advice.  When Jonah, a resentful, bitter and prideful prophet brings the message of impending doom to the Ninevites, they all immediately and profoundly convert and are spared. read more