◄ Have you Considered? (JOB-study 1) ►

A Full Study Of JOB

Question of Suffering

Why do I have to suffer, I am upright in all God’s ways?  This was Job’s argument. Now, remember, Job’s creed was that God only prospered the upright. You have sinned against God… repent of the wicked deeds you must have committed. This was the retort of Job’s friends – they also believed God only punished the wicked.

All Good Things

Both had elements of the truth – but both had elements of the untruth. God does indeed bless the righteous.. but He also blesses sinful man as well. Evil does fall upon the wicked.. but God also permits evil in the life of saints as well.  But ALL good that comes to man comes from a good and faithful God. And ALL the evil that befalls both sinners and saved alike is perpetrated by Satan. But good and evil alike.. God uses it all to forward His eternal plans and purposes.

Distorting Truth

God’s Word proclaims that He does indeed bless the righteous, and He does punish the wicked. Satan the current ruler of this domain is God’s bitterest adversary. The prince of the power of the air seeks to counterfeit the Spirit’s workings in man. The enemy seeks to distort the goodness of God, by distorting God’s truth.

A Closer Walk

What is your belief?  What is the creed to which you hold fast?  Are there elements in your faith, that on closer scrutiny don’t hold fast with Scripture?  Have you considered my servant Job?  Oh, Job was indeed perfect, upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.  No external fault could be found with him. But there were elements in Job’s pure, virtuous life, needing the Spirit’s refining touch.  Elements the moral, upright, proud, self-governed heart of Job, needed to learn, and God used the circumstances in Job’s life to bring him into a closer walk with God – just as God uses happenings in our lives, to draw us closer to Himself.  Chambers once wrote,  One of the most cunning travesties, is to represent Satan – as the instigator of external sins.

Wiles of Satan

The devil certainly was instrumental in the birth of fleshly sins and the carnal nature – but Satan seeks much more from the man of God, than to tempt his with such trifles. He desires to manage the mind and heart of a believing man in a more subtle way. He seeks to influence man’s heart against His Creator through Self-government..  so that believing man cries, whydo I have to suffer? I am upright in all God’s ways. Let me curse God and die….”

Underlying Lesson

The underlying lesson of the life of Job has nothing to do with sins. It has nothing to do with any sin righteous Job did or did not commit. It has nothing to do sins that Job’s friends accused him of committing. Past, present, and future sins of the believing man are forgiven and forgotten. The same holds true for the man of God today – all sins are forgiven and forgotten – past, present and future – all forgiven and forgotten. So don’t pride yourself that your forgiven sins are influencing the troubles in your life.

Divine Fullness

But God does have a purpose for each life and He uses trials and tribulations, instigated by Satan, to achieve His perfect will. The one area in the life of this upright man – (one of Ezekiel’s 'These Three Men'…. Noah, Daniel, and Job) – was that he, like us, should ‘understand’ God’s divine fullness. The one lesson these three men learned was a deeper knowledge of God – a deeper understanding of Himself. And this is what He desires to teach us through our difficulties.. His fullness.. the fullness of God; the fullness of Christ; the fullness of Himself.

Fullness of God

You can read about the fullness of our faithful God in Ephesians 3:19… and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.  You can read about the fullness of our faithful Christ in Ephesians 4:13 …until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.  You can read about the fullness of the Godhead in Coossiansl 2:9… For in him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

God’s Plan

That you may be filled with the fullness of God, and come to the measure of the fullness of Christ, so that the fullness of the Godhead….. makes you complete in Him. Oh yes, Job is indeed a great example – one we all would do well to consider.  Have you really considered my servant Job…. ?