SCRIPTURE: Job 15-21
Job’s friends are confident that this is how life works.
If you live good, then you will have a happy life; sin, and you will suffer.
Everyone who suffers must have sinned, while those who experience goodness must be good people.
Job does not deny that sin and suffering are related, but he does not see life in this way.
Job doesn’t know how or why suffering happens as it does, he just knows God is behind it.
Job’s error (as we shall see) is that He faults God on how He manages people and suffering.
But even so, Job clings to God for hope, and not on living a faultless life.
Job’s confidence (unlike his friends) is not in himself, but in God.
Somehow, some way, God will eventually step in to help Him.
I know that my Redeemer lives. In the end he will stand on the earth. After my skin has been destroyed, in my body I’ll still see God. I myself will see him with my own eyes. I’ll see him, and he won’t be a stranger to me. How my heart longs for that day!
This is quite a statement (made famous by Handel’s Messiah), a bold hope and confidence.
I may suffer, I may die, but I will see God, with my own eyes, in my restored body!
Confident not because I’ve lived such a good life, but because God is such a good God!
What do you sense the Lord saying to you?
PRAYER
God, help me to see that nothing in this life can separate me from Your love. Help me to cling to this hope, that one day I will see You, and everything will be alright! How my heart longs for that day!
Observation/Application
Am I a stepping stone or a stumbling block? Am I an encourager or discourager? Job’s friends were like a hot east wind. Their presence were not an aid to Job.
In all the troubles Job experienced he still felt that God had put a net about Him. He is caught by His God or as he states a few verses later, Job knows his Redeemer lives and in the end he will see God with his own eyes. ob’s heart is set on the living God. ‘Oh how I long to see Jesus.’
Job does not see his troubles as the Lord’s hand against him because of his sin as his friends do. God is in control. God is God and who can know His ways? All will return back to the earth. Job’s strength was his God. God was His Rock, his Security, his Hope, his Redeemer.
I am His and He is mine.
Prayer
Once again Lord I am reminded that in all circumstances You are God and You will lead me and guide me to Your holy hill. Help me of my journey serving You.
Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
[or Guide me, O Thou great Redeemer…]
Pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but Thou art mighty;
Hold me with Thy powerful hand.
Bread of Heaven, Bread of Heaven,
Feed me till I want no more;
Feed me till I want no more.
Open now the crystal fountain,
Whence the healing stream doth flow;
Let the fire and cloudy pillar
Lead me all my journey through.
Strong Deliverer, strong Deliverer,
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield;
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.
Lord, I trust Thy mighty power,
Wondrous are Thy works of old;
Thou deliver’st Thine from thralldom,
Who for naught themselves had sold:
Thou didst conquer, Thou didst conquer,
Sin, and Satan and the grave,
Sin, and Satan and the grave.
When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside;
Death of deaths, and hell’s destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan’s side.
Songs of praises, songs of praises,
I will ever give to Thee;
I will ever give to Thee.