Sure, we know we’re not perfect. We know we are “sinners saved by grace.” We know we have a few problem areas that need some selfimprovement. But God’s agenda for transformation always goes deeper than ours. Because he sees us as we truly are, he knows far better than we do that what is required for us is not just a little touch-up here and there; we desperately need to be completely changed into the image of Christ. We would settle for being nice, respectable, church-going Americans. God wants holy, righteous, loving, self-sacrificing, pure, meek, humble, merciful sons and daughters of God. In short, he wants
to make us like Jesus, and that’s a radical transformation.
If we ever grasp how deeply we need transformation, however, it changes our view of others as well. We tend to divide the world into people like us-pretty good, decent people who may have a few problems that God can help fix; and people who are not like us-people who are evil, people who are depraved, people who are beyond hope. Oh, we agree in theory that God loves everyone and can change anyone, but in practice we tend to doubt that much will come of them.
The story of Jonah challenges our preconcieved ideas about who God wants to transform. Jonah had to learn, and learn the hard way, that God really did want to transform even “them,” the wicked people of Nineveh, the people who were nothing like “us.” And just like Jonah, God is willing if necessary to put us in the “belly of the fish” until we learn that we are nothing without the grace of God, and that the same grace freely offered to us, he wants to offer to everyone in the world.
Who are you prepared to offer grace to? Who do you think deserves to be, or is able to be, transformed? At Frazer, we’re embarking on a journey of believing that the God of Israel is also the God of Nineveh; the God of America is also the God of Haiti; the God of the middle class in Montgomery is also the God of the poor. Transformation is for us, and transformation is for everyone!