Called To Love Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. Think about all the calls we get in a day’s time. Some are important, some not so important, some just a nuisance. Many times, we don’t even want to answer the call, because it seems like every call requires something from us. Something else we have to do, or somewhere we have to go, or something that’s going to cost us something. You know, that’s exactly how Jonah felt, when God called him to go preach to the Ninevites. That’s one call Jonah certainly didn’t want to take! It required him to go somewhere he didn’t want to go, and do something he didn’t want to do. It was certainly going to cost him something - something he didn't want to pay! Jonah tried to run away from his call. God had told him to go to Ninevah, which was due east; instead, he took off for Joppa, which was due west. He went exactly opposite the way God told him to go, just as far as he could in the opposite direction. Have you ever done that? Gone just the opposite of where God told you to go, or done the opposite of what He told you to do? We’ve all been guilty of that, haven’t we? Jonah didn’t want to preach repentence to the Ninevites. They were a pagan nation, full of violence against God’s people and others, worshiping other gods, They did not deserve God’s love and His mercy, according to Jonah’s way of thinking! There are often people in our lives that we think do not deserve God’s love and grace and mercy. Oh, we pay lip-service, alright --- but our hearts aren’t in it. And just as God showed Jonah, the problem is in our hearts. When we have a rebellious heart, we think we can ignore God’s call and get by with it. Well, we all know how Jonah’s rebellion turned out. That was the first time in history that a fish caught a man, instead of the other way around! Jonah’s rebellion didn’t affect only him, it had a tremendous effect on the people around him, the others in the boat. In fact, they came close to capsizing and drowning, because of Jonah. We need to realize that our rebellions affect those around us, as well as ourselves. When we ignore God’s call, we leave them vulnerable, about to capsize and drown in the dark sea of sin. And we leave ourselves vulnerable to being swallowed up by a whale of sin! Why don’t we ever just make it easy on ourselves and do it God’s way to start with? We KNOW He is going to have His way, whether we cooperate or not. So why don’t we learn to bend our stiff necks and simply say, "Yes, Lord." In the same way, God has called us to love some people that we just didn’t want to love. But here’s the thing: If we are Christians, we are called to love. There’s just no getting around it. Loving others is what sets Christians apart from all the other people in the world, it is our whole purpose here on this earth. Jesus was very clear about that: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Let me ask you this --- do you have any Ninevites in your own life? Those people whom you just can’t love? Those people who don’t deserve God’s love and His mercy, according to your way of thinking? It’s hard, I know, but we are called to love. If we are honest, we’d admit that most of the time, we don’t want to love those who have brought us grief, or suffering. We don’t want to love those who have offended us in some way, or those that we consider enemies. No, like Jonah, we’d really prefer for God to just destroy them - or at least get them out of our hair! There are many groups of people in our society that are hard to love. Think of all the elderly people in nursing homes who have no one to show them a little touch of human kindness, day in and day out. Yes, maybe they are crotchety and cranky, maybe they are difficult, hard of hearing and hard to deal with. But God loves them, and we are called to love. Think of the young people who seem to be in rebellion against everything. Tattoos, body piecings, strange clothing, all black leather and chains. Some of them scare you half to death ...they seem to hate everyone and everything. But God loves them, and we are called to love. What about the homeless people who wander the streets, wearing rags for clothes, unshaved, unbathed, unbrushed, and smelling like yesterday’s garbage, with a strong odor of alcohol on top of it all. Yes, They are smelly and undesirable, but God loves them. And we are also called to love. Or think about those spending their days behind bars, just marking time. Criminals, hoping to beat the system. Hoping for anything to shorten their sentence, knowing they don’t deserve mercy, that they gotten exactly what they deserve. You know, the worst thing in the world is getting what we deserve. Somehow nothing makes us angrier than getting what we deserve. They may be sullen, disrespectful, sarcastic, or downright mean and hateful, but God loves them, and we are called to love. Some people just don’t like anyone else who is different in any way: anyone too fat, too old, different skin color, different race or nationality, different religions.... But we are called to love. Think of all the lost and rejected people in our society. Drunks, drug addicts, prostitutes, homosexuals, gang members, those in mental hospitals, or the mentally or physically handicapped, the list is long and varied. God loves each and every one of the people we consider the dregs of humanity. He doesn’t love their sins, but He loves them every bit as much as He love you and me. And if we call ourselves Christians, we are called to love them, too. Well, as Christians, we know we have a call to love, so, the question is this: are we going to answer the call? Because just like Jonah, our call is going to cost us something. It’s going to require something from us; it’s going to require that we DO something - perhaps something that we don’t want to do. Jesus said, in Luke 9:23 : "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." We are called to love. The only way we can do that is to deny ourselves, our own wants and feelings. And we have to do it daily, not just once or twice in a lifetime. We have to stop thinking of our own selfish ways and what we want to do, and start thinking of what God wants us to do – to love others as ourselves. Jesus called us to love all the unloved and unloveable people in the world. All the rejected, unaccepted. and unacceptable people out there. At all the lost people out there, dying and facing eternity without Jesus. If we call ourselves followers of Christ, we are called to love, because He loved us. 1 Jo 4:19 puts it plainly: "We love him, because He first loved us." When we are finally able to see people through God’s eyes, we can begin to see the needs, sometimes desperate needs, of the world around us. Of course, the most desperate need of all is the need for the redeeming love of our Lord and Savior. Each one of us is called to love the lost and dying world around us. Like Jonah, this call is going to cost us something. So ask yourself just this one question: Are you willing to answer the call?