“And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” – Jonah 4:11
God loves those who are very far from Him. He loves those who oppose, oppress, and persecute His people. He deeply desires for them to enter into relationship with Him through faith in Christ. It was true in Jonah’s day and it’s true today.
As the world increasingly divides our nation and encourages us to genuinely loathe those different from us, followers of Christ must utterly reject this temptation! Christians cannot turn inward with hard and hateful hearts toward those most opposed to the faith. Rather than respond in anger and seek every possible means to defeat those opposed to the faith, we must view them as God does and seek to win them to Christ through our love, our good works, and our testimony.
We’re surrounded by millions and billions who “do not know their right hand from their left” calling what is good evil and what is evil good. God didn’t appoint us to this time to battle them. He appointed us to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to them.
We don’t have to like it – Jonah certainly didn’t. But we do have to be faithful in genuinely sharing Christ, especially with those radically different from ourselves and currently opposed to everything we believe.