I'm reading my bible through chronologically this year. I've found myself in Job 1-5 this morning! Wow! There were some things there I had never seen before! I want to share them with you:
1:8 says "And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?" I never noticed before but it wasn't Satan's idea to persecute Job. God gave Satan the idea and Satan essentially became God's puppet in testing Job!
Between verse 9-19 of chapter 1, Satan does his best or should we say worst, not touching Job as instructed, but still hurting him in way that is worse than physical hurt. His children are gone and all his worldly goods. Several servants have perished or been captured and only 4 miserable messengers remain. Look at 1:20 "Then Job arose," Here it is, Job is going to shake his fist at heaven and demand an answer from God! "and rent his mantle, and shaved his head," All signs of his apparent rebellion towards God and what he has done to Job, right? And what's this? "and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped?" Really? When I try to feebly put myself in that position, I see yelling, crying, fatigue from asking why, but Job worships God and look what he says in verse 21: "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Wow! I like that Job acknowledges the hurt, we think being spiritual is not realizing we've been hurt but he recognizes that God did take things away and God is in control and he blesses the name of the Lord! That's powerful right there! The bible goes on to tell us that "In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly."
How did Job get to this point where he could worship? Look back in 1:8, look at his character:
None like him - meaning none was like him.
Perfect man - meaning he was complete, perfect, one who lacked nothing in strength and beauty, sound, wholesome, ordinary, quiet sort of person, one who was morally innocent, and ethically pure.
Upright man - one who is correct, upright, right.
Feareth God - has a fear or reverence for God.
And escheweth evil - he turned aside from, depart from, removed himself from, came to an end, rejected, and abolished: evil - bad, that which is disagreeable, sad, evil, causes injury, or wrong.
How about you? Is there things that leave you incomplete? Do you read your bible and talk to God every day? Are you memorizing God's word? Are you going to church? Is something missing in your life?
Are you upright? Are you correct or do you spout weird theories? Do you think YOUR way and YOUR experience trump God's truth?
Do you fear God? Do you have a healthy fear of God and Who He is and what He is capable of? Do your reverence Him? Do you revere Him as you ought to?
That last one. Is there some evil, some kind of sin in your life that you need to end? that you need to abandon, reject, outright abolish? Do you watch bad things on t.v.? Do you look at things on the internet you shouldn't? Do you gossip via texts, Facebook, email, in the church kitchen or hallway? Are there disagreeable or sad things in your life, not necessarily evil or sinful, just not tasteful? Do you read books that don't bring honor to God, but instead fill your mind and heart with the philosophy of the world leaving you feeling dry inside? Do you have character traits you need to replace with better ones? Are you lazy? Do you chew with your mouth open? Do you yell? Do you pick your nose? Are you overweight? Those are sad or disagreeable things. They are necessarily sins but they aren't the best either! Get rid of them!
Testing comes to Job's life, Satan leaves and starts going to and fro in the earth and from walking up and down in it. The sons of God come to present themselves to God and Satan comes also. God provokes him about Job. Now, we don't know if this was a day or several days, or weeks later, the bible doesn't tell us, but Job has been at his lonely house, with his wife and 4 servants, unless he couldn't afford them and had to let them go. His daily life is completely changed. We don't see Job offering sacrifices for his kids (just incase they have sinned against God in their hearts!) God asks Satan if he has considered Job. He gives him the whole list again and adds a word: integrity! He says, "and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause." I don't know if God is trying to point out that Satan is doing all these things and his cause for coming against God and his people is worthless but in light of eternity! We have already won! The world and Satan have lost! Why would we want to take up their cause and do what they are doing? It is going to fail one day!
It is interesting that integrity here means: integrity and simplicity of heart and intention. Job kept it simple. He didn't try to complicate his life during this time! So many people come to tragedy and jump ship, quit coming to church, change their life, leave their spouse, quit their job, etc. When, not if, tragedy comes, keep it simple. Don't try to change a lot of things. Stay the course, remain faithful to God, go to church, read your bible.
In chapter 2 when Job's wife tells him to curse God and die, he doesn't call her a foolish woman, he says she spake as one of them. Too often in our churches we shoot our wounded. They are hurt and hurting people, hurt people and are easily hurt. Instead of telling them how awful they are, maybe with Job, we can recognize this was a singular event. One time telling her husband to curse God and die does not make her a habitually foolish woman, it means she was foolish that one time. Maybe we can recognize that ONE sin doesn't make that person that forever! We are washed under the blood of Jesus if we ask forgiveness of our sin. Paul said "such WERE some of you". People CAN change. People can do right and when those who are spiritual fall, don't try to destroy them, love them, help them, don't write them off, if they're still breathing God's not done with them!
In conclusion: Testing WILL come. WHEN it does, determine, NOW to worship God and not sin. Right now work on being like Job was before he was ever tested: Perfect, Upright, Fearing God, Eschewing Evil. And WHEN testing comes chose to maintain your Integrity! It is worth it! We still talk about a man named Job from 4,000+ years ago because he made right decisions! What will people be saying about you in 100 years? Will they be able to point others to Christ because of the decisions you made? or will they shake their heads and not even remember your name? One person CAN make a difference if they choose to follow God and do what is right! Job had one job, he worshipped God, and he did it really well!
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