Our Pastor is on sabbatical, so we have been having a visiting speaker every Sunday for the last month, with one more to go this weekend (which I am particularly looking forward to, but I’ll get into that in another post). Anyway, Sunday before last we had Greg Johnson come from the Standing Together Ministries and I loved the message he shared. Greg is an Evangelical Chrisitan here in predominatly Mormon Utah. The vision of his ministry is to be able to dialog with Mormons openly and honestly, and in love, not in a way that is confrontational.

Greg’s message last Sunday began with Matt. 22:37, Love God with all your heart. So now, imagine what if, we were fully surrendered to Him to live out our faith daily for Christ? We believe that God has a transformation for our own hearts when we are in Christ, so we as believers in Utah should be fired up and change our perspective on what God can and will do here.

We have to be careful in the process not to limit the way God may transform Utah. Greg lead us to reread Jonah. God instructed Jonah to go and preach to Nineveh, but he didn’t want to because he grew up hating the Assyrians and didn’t want to share God’s word with them, for fear that they would repent and recieve God’s mercy. So, even though God specifically gave Jonah a job to do, he didn’t want to do it and instead went in the opposite direction with the intent to head to Tarshish. As he got to a port called Joppa, he paid a fare to get on a boat to sail to Tarshish so that he could flee from God. But, as we all know, that isn’t possible. God sent some great winds and violent storms that threatened to break up the ship and in the end the sailors thought Jonah was responsible. Jonah knew that because he disobeyed God, he was putting the lives of those on board in danger, so Jonah had the sailors throw him overboard, and God smoothed the waters for the sailors (who then came to believe in Him), while He provided a whale to swallow up Jonah for a time out.

So, while Jonah was in time out, he called to God, and God faithfully answered and gave Jonah another chance to go to Nineveh. After being belched out of the whale, Jonah went to proclaim God’s message that He would overturn their city if they failed to turn from their wicked ways. Upon Jonah’s preaching, the king proclaimed that everyone should urgently call on God and repent so that they wouldn’t perish, and when they did this, God had compassion on them. BUT…. this made Jonah angry and he expressed that anger to God, who basically said, “Why do you have the right to be angry?” Jonah was so angry that he wanted to die.

What does Jonah’s story remind us of? To remember for one, that when we are in time out (in our own belly of the whale), God certainly hears us. Also, we must know that if we are ready for Utah to change, and for Mormons to see the truth, we can’t doubt how God is going to do it. Would we act like Jonah and be angry if the Mormon chruch crumbles in a way other than what we would expect? What if it doesn’t “crumble”? What if God worked in a different way? What if through our ability to talk and relate to Mormons, God worked in redemption? What if our ability to be intercessors and get on our knees asking for God’s blessing over all of Utah, to pray for her people, and <what if that brought God’s redemption of them? Historically, past relations between Evangelical Christians and the LDS church has been conflicted over the foundation of the Gospel, what if God used our fully surrendered heart to His Holy Spirit to show His love, and awoke them to trust God?

On the 12th of November, the LDS General Authorities have invited Ravi Zacharias and Greg Johnson (from Standing Together Ministries) to meet with LDS leaders for an open dialog… please pray that this metting will build bridges and foster further loving conversations so that God can suprise us with His power to unite and redeem those whose hearts He cherishes!!