Moralist or Relativist?

Jonah 2:9 - “Salvation belongs to the Lord!”

Are you a moralist or a relativist?

Moralist: one who trusts in a moral life as his/her hope.

Relativist: one who lives according to their own standards and desires.

A good example of both is given to us in the familiar parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32 .  The elder brother is the moralist:  “Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command.”  The younger brother is the relativist: “ . . . he squandered his property in reckless living.”

Both brothers were using something against the father to stay away from him in order to control him.  The younger brother was using his immorality, and the elder brother his morality.  The unbeliever lives by one of these two paradigms.  They have not sought to humbly submit to the Father’s care and turn from their rebellion by trusting that Christ has paid for both their ‘bad’ behavior as well as their supposed ‘good’ behavior.  

At one time or another, or even in one hour or another, we who profess Christ also swing between the two paradigms forgetting that Christ has paid for both sets of sins.  Sometimes we live like a relativist running from God declaring our independence.  At other times we run from God in our moralism thinking that we are getting this Christian life right and deserve God’s favor.

Whether you are an unbeliever or a believer, you still need Christ.  

Jonah was a believing moralist who needed to see that neither his ‘good’ behavior, his family line (Jewish), nor his religious practice merited any more salvation from God than the evil practice of the worst of relativists (Ninevites) de-merited God’s salvation.  Salvation, through and through, belongs to the Lord.  He draws us to trust in His Son and He continues to grow those who trust in Him.  With patience and long suffering He reveals our heart of continued distrust so that we might trust Him more.

nearsighted

Jonah 4:5-11

5  Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city. 

6  Now the LORD God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. 7  But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. 8  When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. 

And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” 9  But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” 10  And the LORD said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11  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?” 

Are you one who can get bogged down in details and miss the bigger, more important task at hand?  Maybe you are one who will dust off the leaves of your houseplants but ignore the laundry strewn across the furniture.  Maybe you are easily distracted from your immediate task to do something completely mundane.  I find myself at many times being absent-minded.  Last night I was focused on locking up the church building and drove home without my glasses (they were sitting on my desk) and without my cell phone (It was seated comfortably next to my glasses).  Now, as I write this, my cell phone is dead.  Why did I forget these items?  My mind was distracted, I’m sure, by something vitally important.  Right?  Probably not.  It was nearsightedness.  The mundane took precedent over the more important.

God uses Jonah’s nearsightedness to teach a lesson about grace and mercy.  Jonah goes outside the city Nineveh in order to watch the proceedings of, what He hopes will be God’s judgment against Nineveh.  Maybe he thought his anger at God for showing mercy would win God over to his thinking so that God would destroy these infidels.  Whatever the reason, Jonah is watching and God gives him shade via a gourd vine.  Jonah loves the vine because it gives him comfort.  God removes the vine via a worm.  Jonah gets angry.  Jonah is nearsighted.  Jonah cares more for his comfort from a vine in which he has made no investment, then he does for 120,000 people who don’t know God’s grace.  Ouch.

What creature comforts do you allow into your life that produce a nearsighted effect?  What produces in you more of a concern for your will over God’s will?  What keeps you introverted, secluded, and imprisoned from seeking out how He might use you for His glory and the benefit of another or others?  May God richly bless our time spent in His Word wrestling with sin and conflicted by grace.