1 Peter 1.3-7 and Jonah 4.1-11
In this final message on the Book of Jonah we witness the unrelenting love of God for Jonah. After all God does in bringing Jonah to the place of preaching to the Ninevites, Jonah falls right back into the sin with which the book begins.  He returns to the self-absorbed, self-centered racist, angry that God is “a God who relents from sending calamity” upon the wicked, Gentile people of Nineveh.  In Jonah we see a sober reminder that fruitful, prominent Christians can fall back into their old sin.  The greatest of Christians can, and do fall, as do we all.  But God does not give up on us.  Rather, he is unrelenting in his love.  As we see in the final verses of the Book of Jonah, God goes about his work of refining & purifying us, by removing from us that which takes his place in our lives and which keeps us from loving him and the things he loves.  He provides worms to wreck our vines.  He provides scorching winds and a blazing sun to make us faint.  Like gold refined by fire, says Peter, our faith is purified by the fire of the suffering he provides.  God has made us holy and blameless through the work of Christ on the cross.  The righteousness of Christ has been imputed to us. But God does not stop there.  God is in the process of making us more and more into who we are in Christ.  So let us never despair of God’s love. No matter how far we fall, God will pursue us with his unrelenting love; the love which moved his heart to give his one and only Son to live and die for us, that we might live a live of beauty and joy for ever.