In Jonah 1, we meet the Israelite prophet who preferred to flee rather than obey the Lord’s call to do something new, surprising, and unpleasant, namely, go preach to the Ninevites, the mortal enemies of the Israelites. However, God did not give up on Jonah, or, as we shall see, on the Ninevites, or on us.
Jesus told more parables to show that the kingdom of God is free to enter but demands everything.
To be ready for Jesus’ coming, we need to be doing what he has already told us to do.
If someone hears a message but does not act upon it, sometimes we say that “it went in one ear and out the other.”...