Grace for Fugitives

God’s grace is more expansive than our sin. The whole story of Jonah is God going after depraved, fallen fugitives.
We basically understand why God pursues Jonah, since he was a prophet and a part of God’s people Israel, and he cared about God, at some level anyway. Jonah’s prayer revealed that he was basically a friend of God, not an enemy.
Yet God also goes after Nineveh. Jonah was pathetic in many ways, but Nineveh was violently wicked, perverse and sadistic. It makes me wonder why God didn’t just do away with the whole nasty place. That would have spared God so much effort.
But the good news is that God’s ability to clean things up is infinitely greater than our ability to mess things up. God’s grace is so massive, so expansive, so wide-ranging, that it tracks down both kinds of runners from God. Those who try to rescue themselves by breaking the rules, and those who try keeping them.
There’s no place where you might be now, or where you might have been in the past, or where you might go in the future, that will ever be beyond the reach of God’s grace, nowhere!
Tullian Tchividjian in Surprised by Grace


Lamentations 3:22-23
22 Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

Thought to Apply:
Grace means the free, unmerited, unexpected love of God, and all the benefits, delights, and comforts which flow from it. It means that while we were sinners and enemies we have been treated as sons and heirs.