Year 5, Day 130: Job 36

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: King

• King: This is the pinnacle of the Kingdom Triangle.  When we look towards God’s position in the universe, we acknowledge that He is an omnipotent king.  Authority comes from Him.  Power comes through His authority.  He is looking for representatives for His kingdom.

It seems to make common sense that the king of the universe – the omnipotent being who set it into motion – should be the center of our life.  We should be about drawing closer to God and living according to His ways.  When we focus on Him, our lives are ordered, our advice is sound, and we are a blessing to the people around us.  Life is good when the King is truly at the center of our universe.  God the Father should be in our Up position.

However, it is often the case with human beings that we get our life out of order.  Rather than submitting to God’s order and God’s ways, we let our own desires rule our life.  We let our own wisdom guide our paths.  We turn our eyes from God and supplant the Father with a god we’ve created in our own image.

That’s what we see Elihu doing here.  So far, Elihu’s voice has been sound and full of God’s wisdom.  But in the opening portions of this chapter he begins to speak for God instead of allowing God to speak through him.  He also begins to assert that the righteous prosper and the unrighteous struggle in life.  He begins to assert a prosperity Gospel.  He asserts it not because it is true; he asserts it because he wants it to be true.

Job is not suffering because he is unrighteous, and it is wrong to assert this.  The same mistake that haunted Job’s friends now comes to roost in Elihu.  Elihu gets much right, but in this chapter we begin to see him fall from good theology.

That’s the danger of supplanting God and putting our own conception of God in His place.  When we do this, we often begin to teach theology that is not in line with what God actually asserts.  We begin to assert what we want to believe rather than what God tells us to believe.  We begin to believe what our wisdom says is true rather than actually listening to what God’s Word tells us is true.

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