God never turns away

by Pauline Simonsen

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Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ (Romans 10:17).

Read Romans 10:16–11:1

Think of the times you’ve turned your back on God in the past week. When he’s been speaking, and you’ve metaphorically put your fingers in your ears and started saying ‘la, la, la’ very loudly. Like turning over and going back to sleep when you wake early in the morning with an invitation to spend some time with God. Or ignoring the prompt to connect with the person who keeps coming into your mind. Deciding to indulge the bad habit, even though you know it’s wrong. Telling yourself you’ll read the devotion ‘later’. Yeah, me too.

God is always speaking to us, calling us to him, but humans seem to be hardwired to reject him and to turn away from his invitations to come to him. Even we who have been redeemed by him, reborn in our baptism, made his children – we still struggle with this old nature that doesn’t want God. The Apostle Paul knew the struggle too. He lamented: ‘I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate’ (Romans 7:15).

It’s not like we haven’t heard the word of God; we have, over and over, from parents, pulpits, podcasts! It’s not like we don’t understand who God is in Jesus and what God has done for us. The Israelites had the same struggle, as Paul says in today’s reading. They heard, they understood – but many of them still rejected God’s word about Christ. The problem is human wilfulness, our ‘old Adam’. Paul quotes Isaiah quoting God: ‘All day long I have held my hands out to a disobedient and obstinate people.’ That’s Israel in captivity; Jonah in the belly of the fish; failing, sinking Peter; you and me – we are all those disobedient, obstinate people. Surely God gets sick of our repeated rejections of him? Surely he will turn his back on us?

‘No!’ says Paul. God will not reject his people. God still speaks his beautiful message of grace, the good news: the word about Christ. We hear again that God’s mercy in Jesus never ends, and with the Holy Spirit’s help, we believe. We put our faith in the one who is grace incarnate – our Jesus, standing before us right now, saying, ‘Come.’

Beloved Jesus, we hear you now, calling us to yourself, like you called Peter out of the boat. O loving Lord, help us to come to you and follow you today. Forgive our wilfulness, and with your Spirit’s help, give us hearts to love you, Lord, and to obey you this day. Amen.

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