WHEN GRACE OFFENDS YOU
There’s a good chance there’s someone in your life.
Maybe it’s an old boss who humiliated you. A family member who betrayed your trust. Someone who broke up your marriage, your friendship, or your family. An ex who moved on like nothing happened. A colleague who got credit for your work.
Someone who—if God got hold of them and genuinely changed them—you would struggle to be happy about it.
Maybe you would try to find a way to celebrate, but the reality is that you’d be resenting it.
If you’re not sure, this post is for you. Because somewhere between loving mercy for ourselves and extending it to others, many of us get stuck.
We Love Grace Until It Goes to the Wrong People
Most of us would say we believe in grace. We’ve received it. We’re grateful for it. We lean on it when we fall short.
Until it goes to someone we’ve decided doesn’t deserve it.
That’s when grace stops feeling like good news and starts feeling like injustice. When mercy feels less like a gift and more like a get out of jail free card for someone we aren’t ready to forgive yet.
Maybe we think: They don’t deserve forgiveness. They haven’t suffered enough.
Here’s what I’ve come to understand: When grace offends you, it might be a sign that you don’t understand what it’s done for you yet.
The Prophet Who Was Furious at a Revival
There’s a story in Scripture that captures this tension better than anything I’ve read. Most people know the broad outline: a guy runs from God, there’s a big fish, there’s a city. But the ending of Jonah’s story is where it gets real.
After three days in the belly of a fish, Jonah finally obeys and goes to Nineveh, a massive and violent city that was the sworn enemy of Israel. He preaches a five-word sermon. Miraculously, the entire city of 120,000 people repents. The king takes off his royal robes, sits in the dust, and calls the nation to pray.
One of the greatest revivals in human history!
But Jonah is furious. Wait, what?
Jonah 4:1–2 says: “But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, ‘I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.’”
Jonah would rather die than watch Nineveh receive mercy.
Here’s the kicker: Jonah had just received this same mercy. Go back to Jonah 2 and read his prayer from inside the fish. He’s overflowing with gratitude, celebrating God’s grace toward a man who ran, disobeyed, and brought disaster on everyone around him.
Jonah loved grace when it rescued him.
He despised grace when it was given to people he thought deserved punishment.
Why Grace Feels Offensive
Grace, by definition, is God showing mercy to people who don’t deserve it. That’s not a soft or comfortable idea. It has edges. Grace is not given to the worthy. It’s given to the unworthy. That’s what makes it grace.
Nineveh was a ruthless empire known for impaling captives and using terror as a governing strategy. They were the last people Jonah, or any Israelite, wanted to see forgiven.
But God saw something different. He looked at 120,000 people and had compassion.
Jonah didn’t make the connection between what God was doing for Nineveh and what had happened for him in the fish. He couldn’t see that the grace that saved him and the grace that saved Nineveh came from the same heart of God.
That’s a warning for all of us. It is dangerously easy to receive grace and never truly understand it. To be forgiven and still believe others should pay. To sing about mercy on Sunday and quietly hope someone gets what they deserve on Monday.
God Asks a Question Instead of Giving a Lecture
God’s response to Jonah’s anger is a continuation of that grace. He doesn’t strike him down or argue with Jonah. He asks a simple question: “Is it right for you to be angry?”
Then God gives Jonah an object lesson. A plant grows up overnight and gives Jonah shade. Jonah is relieved and grateful. But the next day, God sends a worm to destroy the plant. When the sun blazes and the scorching wind comes, Jonah collapses and says he wants to die.
God responds: “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people?”
Don’t miss it: The plant dying upset Jonah more than an entire city going to hell.
Jonah’s compassion was for his own comfort. God’s compassion is for people.
That’s where the book ends. No resolution. Just a question hanging in the air for all of us to answer.
When we cannot root for someone’s redemption, something is being exposed. Pride. Bitterness. Self-righteousness. We start to believe we are more deserving of grace than they are.
Most of all, it reveals that grace has not yet sunk in as deeply as we thought.
The Hardest Prayer You Might Need to Pray
Early in my ministry, a leader I worked under hurt me deeply. It was a professional wound, but it got personal quickly. For a long time, I had trouble letting it go. I didn’t pray for them. I didn’t wish them well. I didn’t forgive.
It took longer than I’m proud of to realize that this mentality wasn’t protecting me. It was shrinking me. My reaction felt justified. Maybe it was. But justified unforgiveness is still a prison.
Spiritual maturity is not just loving people who are easy to love. It’s learning to love who God loves. And God loves the people who hurt us.
We don’t get to decide who God forgives or who receives grace. And thank God that we don’t, because the same grace that saved us is meant to flow through us.
Take Action: What to Do When Grace Offends You
So let me ask you the same thing God asked Jonah:
Is there anyone in your life who is hard for you to pray and hope good things for?
If someone comes to mind, don’t ignore that. That name. That face. That memory. It surfaced for a reason.
God is not trying to guilt you. He’s trying to free you. Bitterness doesn’t hurt the person you resent. It keeps you stuck watching the city, waiting for a fire that may never come, slowly becoming someone with a smaller heart than God intended.
What if grace is offending you because God is exposing something in you? Not to shame you, but to heal you, and make you more like Himself?
Forgive. Hope. Let go.
Not because they deserve it. But because you were given what you didn’t deserve. And that changes everything.
All for Jesus,
Brad D. Jenkins
P.S. — If this has been helpful, please send me a message at brad@bradjenkins.me and let me know. My writing aims to help people enjoy a vibrant relationship with Jesus, and it is an honor to be on this journey with you. To read previous newsletters or to sign up so that you don’t miss future posts, visit www.bradjenkins.me/blog.
Watch the message “When Grace Offends You” by Brad D. Jenkins at Anthem Church. YouTube