Year 5, Day 143: Ephesians 2

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from our Father.

As I was reading this passage today, a part of the scripture jumped out at me that I had glossed over many times.  We are created for good works.  Our function is good works.

Of course I always knew that, which is why I think I always gloss over it really easily.  God made us and we are in relationship with Him so that we can do His will.  That’s one of the great underlying premises of relationship with God.

However, because we understand that premise so easily we miss the point that Paul is trying to make in context.  Paul says this immediately after saying that we are saved by grace and not work.  It is not our works that save us.  What saves us is the gift of God coming to us through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ upon the cross.  Therefore, works must be our obedient response rather than our natural condition.

God created us for good works.  In fact, Paul goes one step further.  We are created in Jesus Christ for good works.  It is the transformation that God does in us through Jesus Christ that allows us to be obedient to His will.  We are not perfect little angels at conception.  We do not come out of the birth process innocent little creations who are free of sin.  We are born into this world sinful and corrupt.  Through Jesus Christ – through the grace of God – God takes that person whose nature is corrupt and causes them to be able to be obedient.  Our obedience is always a response to God’s grace; it is never an act we do on our own in order to win God’s grace.

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Year 5, Day 142: Ephesians 1

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Up

• Up: Up is the word we use for what we worship.  If we are following God’s will, God will occupy the Up position.  Our life, our identity, our mission, our family on mission is all derived from Up.  This is why God needs to be in our Up position.

There are many reasons in this first chapter of Ephesians to think about why God should be the center of our worship and the center of our life.  God blesses us.  God chooses us when we don’t deserve it.  He causes us to be holy and blameless.  He adopted us.  He gives us wisdom to see His mysteries.

But there is more here.  He gives us the Holy Spirit.  He gives us a guarantor of our salvation.  He gives us the ability to know what it is like to live daily in the presence of our God before we truly deserve it!

Yet there is even more.  When we look at the community God creates around us we see even more reason to celebrate.  Only God can bring human beings together and have it end well.  Only through our focus upon Him can we put our own self-centeredness aside and look to help one another and spread His glory throughout the world.

Whether we think about God, how He interacts with us individually, or how He interacts with us as a community there is plenty of reason to worship Him.

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Year 5, Day 141: Galatians 5 & 6

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Calling

• Calling asks whether or not God has called the person to the particular work at this point in their life.

Galatians 5 & 6 are largely about calling, which makes sense since the prior chapters were primarily about character and having an internal perspective that lines up with God.  Once the internal life is established, we can then turn to calling.  Once we know what God wants us to be and we are resolved to be obedient, then we are prepared to live it out.  This is our calling.

So what does Paul say that God is calling us to become?  We are to embody the nature of God to the people around us.  We are to be people who model: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  We are to carry one another’s’ burdens.  We are to restore people who have fallen away from God.  We are to do good at every opportunity.

This is our calling.  This is why we are crucified in Christ.  This is why we are to be a people of grace and not a people dependent upon blind obedience to the Law.  God calls us to be representatives of His character.

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Year 5, Day 140: Galatians 4

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Challenge

• Challenge: God does not merely wish us to be in relationship with Him as we are.  He challenges us to grow, stretch, and transform as we take on the mantle of being His representatives to this world.

I believe Galatians 4 is all about the challenge.  We can see this because Paul is bold in his proclamation to a bunch of Jews.  He compares being under the Law to Ishmael, the slave born to Hagar.  He compares being free in Christ to Isaac, the child of the promise born to Sarah.  This is a bold claim indeed.

Paul knows that his audience wants to identify with Sarah and more so with Isaac, the child of the promise.  But by comparing the Law to Ishmael, Paul sets up conflict within his audience.  He uses this conflict to challenge the Galatians to jump to the side grace and to be willing to give up the idea that a person is justified by their ability to do the law.

I believe the same challenge exists within our culture today.  How many of us will only listen to a certain person, or a certain gender, or people of a certain age, or people who dress a certain way, or people who cut their hair a certain way, or people who have a certain amount of money?  We as human beings like to put limits and credentials upon those to whom we will listen.  But Paul advocates a position of grace.  He advocates a position of spirit.

Does the Holy Spirit only indwell those who dress the right way?  Does the Spirit only indwell with people who cross over a certain threshold of money?  Does the Spirit only indwell with people of a particular gender?  I can keep going.  But what I’m getting at here is how we respond to challenge.  Do we have to have things our way?  Or am I open to however God is working in my life?  That is the challenge that Paul puts forward here in this chapter.

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Year 5, Day 139: Galatians 3

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from our Father.

I think the idea of obedience is fundamental to the middle section of the book of Galatians.  But this idea of obedience goes multi-directional.  It must fundamentally start with Christ.  From where does our salvation originate?  Christ and His obedient death on the cross.  Why can we have access to the Holy Spirit?  Christ and His death on the cross.  Jesus Christ is obedient to the Father and died according to His will.  everything we are in Christ begins with Christ.

However, this idea of obedience also extends to us.  Does everyone have the Holy Spirit within them?  Sure, Christ died so that anyone who desires relationship with God can have that relationship.  But does that mean that all people do?  By no means!  God calls me to respond obediently to His calling.  God calls me to hear about His grace and love and mercy and then receive it.  Then He calls for me to obediently live out my reception of His grace.

It is by faith that we are in Christ.  But we are not done with the Law, either.  The Law shows us how to live and in Christ we obediently look up to the Law and strive for it.  We do not do this to prove to God why He should save us.  Rather, we do His will because it is our response to the fact that He has already saved us.

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Year 5, Day 138: Galatians 2

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Calling

• Calling asks whether or not God has called the person to the particular work at this point in their life.

If our authority is from the Father as I asserted yesterday, then what is our calling?  Are we to go out and beat people over the head with the Bible until they yield?  Are we to go out and make war with those who are not Christians?  Are we go through life looking down upon those who have not yet embraced God’s love?

Did Christ beat people over the head with God’s Word?  Did Christ make war?  Did Jesus look down upon those who did not have a relationship with the Father?

No.  Jesus did none of these things.  Jesus came and taught anyone who would listen.  Jesus came and died for the sake of other people.  While being powerful, Jesus sacrificed Himself for the sake of the people around Him.

Paul tells us in Galatians 2:19-20 that we are to do the same.  Paul says that he has been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer he who lives, but Christ who lives within him.  The same should be true for us.  Our calling is to live like Christ.  We are not to beat people down with God’s Word.  We are not to make war with those who oppose us.  We are not to look down upon the people around us.  Instead, we should sacrifice ourselves for the sake of the people around us.  That is our calling.

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Year 5, Day 137: Galatians 1

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Authority

• Authority: Our calling.  This comes from God as king.  Because He calls us as His representatives, He gives us authority to go and do His will.

What I love about Galatians 1 is that Paul is very much a no-compromise apostle in his writing.  He is blunt that his authority comes from God.  He does not get his authority from a counsel.  Neither does he get his authority from an individual or a financier.  Paul gets his authority from Jesus Christ.

This is a really powerful comment.  Who do I serve?  Who do you serve?  Am I only able to speak truth because other spiritual people have approved of me?  Or does my truth come from God the Father and the king of the universe?

I don’t know about you, but I know this is easily answered but difficult to live out.  It is easy to call out that our authority comes from God alone!  But it is difficult to stand up and live it out.  How often does my opinion of myself come from the approval of others?  How often do I think that I can only have God’s wisdom if I am taught it by other people?  We should get our authority from God.  Salvation comes only from Him; the same is true for wisdom and authority.

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Year 5, Day 136: Job 42

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

Now we arrive to the final chapter.  We’ve heard God speak.  We’ve heard God’s wisdom come to bear upon the flaws of the people of His creation.  We’ve seen God come out on top.  And then we get the true heart of God’s character.  What is it that happens when God comes out on top?

When God comes out on top, look at what happens.  God expects repentance and gets it.  But once the repentance happens, God forgives.  Job’s friends repent and are forgiven.  Job repents and is forgiven.  And God puts the whole thing behind Him and moves on.

God is slandered throughout the whole book of Job.  Job’s friends make God out to be a person who uses prosperity to force people how to behave.  Job makes God out to be a God who doesn’t defend the righteous.  God takes it and forgives.

We should imitate this behave.  It is not important that our dominance be asserted.  It is not important that people know how right we are.  What is important is that when the people around us make the inevitable mistakes that they will make then we are forgiving and put it behind us.  Above all else, God is a God of grace, love, and mercy.  We should imitate that – especially in the presence of genuine repentance.

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Year 5, Day 135: Job 41

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Guidance

• Guidance: God grants us His guidance.  Sometimes this guidance is God leading us away from temptation.  Sometimes this guidance is helping us to follow in a direction for which He has chosen.  Our default position should be to wait for God’s guidance and then follow when it comes.

Isn’t the topic of guidance really what the book of Job is all about?  Isn’t the book of Job all about how each of us has something to learn from God? 

• Job’s three friends think that Job’s suffering means that he has sinned.  They need to learn that life is far more complex than prosperity gospel.  Just because I have much does not mean I’m righteous.  Just because I have little or my life is full of sorrow does not mean I am full of sin and cursed by God.
• Elihu learns that even when we are right and full of wisdom we are still susceptible to the pull of the same prosperity Gospel that trapped Job’s friends.  Elihu is full of wisdom, but he is not without error.
• Job learns that while he is righteous and that he is correct in not deserving of this fate, his perspective needs to be broadened.  There are reasons that things happen to us for reason beyond reward and punishment.  God is at work on incredibly deep levels and has an agenda beyond where we typically focus.

Look at God’s final point here to Job.  Job may be righteous.  He may have a great relationship with God.  But Job cannot create.  Job cannot even subdue that which another person creates!  If Job cannot even subdue what God creates, then what right does Job have to bring God’s motivations into question?  God is guiding Job away from thinking about his own punishment and guiding him to broaden his perspective.

There is always more to God if we are willing to go there.  There are always deeper levels to contemplate beyond our reward for good behavior.  God can use anything in our life to teach us about our position in creation.  God can use our life to change the perspectives of others.  God can guide our life to draw us and the people around us closer to Him.  Isn’t that far more significant than our reward or punishment for behavior?

That’s what God is trying to teach Job and those who read this book.

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Year 5, Day 134: Job 40

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Ambition

• Ambition: We all need a goal to which we can strive.  When our ambition comes from God, we find fulfillment in our obedience into that for which we have been equipped because our Out is in proper focus.  But when our ambition comes from ourselves, we find ourselves chasing after our own dreams and trying to find fulfillment in accomplishments of our own making.

I could easily do another blog post on God being the king.  After all, isn’t that what the vast majority of this chapter is all about?  Can Job clothe himself in righteousness?  Can Job judge over creation?  Is it not God who is King and not Job?

However, as I’ve done the last few days I want to talk about this on a deeper level.  What is it that got Job into this little moment with God?  Yes, Job is righteous in God’s eyes.  But even in his righteousness Job sinned.  Job focused on how he was being wronged and how God didn’t do anything about it.  Rather than focus on what God might do through it, Job focused on himself.  He wants to be right.  He wants to have all the answers.  He wants to be vindicated.

The question is, why?  Why is this so important to Job?  Why does Job have to be right?  Why does he have to be on top?  I think the answer is in the human desire for ambition.  Job wants to be right, not focus on what God is doing.  Job wants to be vindicated, not used by God.  Job wants the record to be set straight, not be humble before God.  Job wants to accuse God for not defending him rather than stop and listen to what God is actually doing.

Don’t get me wrong.  Job does eventually figure it out.  Here in this passage Job finally realizes he needs to shut up and clasp his hand over his mouth.  This is where we finally see his humbleness shine through for good.  Here we see Job finally put aside his quest for vindication and be silently humble before God.  We finally see that Job gets it.  It isn’t about him.  It isn’t about his ambition.  It is about God.

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Year 5, Day 133: Job 39

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Authority, Power 

• Authority: Our calling.  This comes from God as king.  Because He calls us as His representatives, He gives us authority to go and do His will.
• Power: This is the natural outcome when we truly get our authority from the king.  When our authority is from God, we are equipped with His power to accomplish His will.  We act on His behalf in a world that He desperately loves.

I could easily do another blog post on God being the king.  After all, how many of these verses have to do with the awesomeness of God?  How many of these verses talk about how great God is and how much God does that we don’t even think about?

However, I’d like to go a step further than just focusing on God’s kingship.  Once we understand that God is indeed King, we can understand just how much of our life is actually under His control.  He controls the movement of the animals.  He controls the behavior of the livestock.  He controls the movement of the stars and the rain that falls.  He controls everything.

This means that if we want to have control over anything, we need to get it from God.  If God has all the control, then we only get control from Him.  If we want power, it needs to come from Him because He is king.  If we want authority, it must necessarily originate from Him.

I believe that this is one of God’s primary points in this chapter.  Yes, He is putting Job in His place.  But He is also reminding us that once we are in our place, we are ready to receive from Him whatever authority and power He decides to give to us.

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Year 5, Day 132: Job 38

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.

There is much reason to speak about God as king at the end of the book of Job.  God comes out swinging.  He asks Job, “Who darkens my counsel without knowledge?”  God lays it all out right here at the beginning.  Compared to God, what am I?  Compared to God, what are any of us?  Even if I know that which I know very deeply, what is it compared to all the things that God knows and I’m completely clueless to the fact that they are even there to be known?

And then God gives a plethora of examples as to why exactly He is king.  He set the universe in motion.  He knows what it is like to see it start.  He knows what it is like to command the wind and the storm.  He knows what it is like to command the snow and the rain.  He knows what it is like to command and set limits to the dawn.  God knows what it is like to know the Pleiades or even Orion intimately.  God know the nature intimately.  God even knows what it means to impart wisdom into others.

That’s what it means to be king of the universe.  He is completely king.  What are any of us to Him?

Yet let’s not forget that God is not so great as to not notice us.  He wants relationship with us.  God may know everything from the stars in the sky to the foundations of this world.  But He wants relationship with you and me.  He wants a relationship so badly that He sent His own Son.  He is indeed king of the universe.

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Year 5, Day 131: Job 37

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Competency, King

• Competency: Being able to accomplish what one is called to do.
• 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.

Yesterday I spent a fair amount of time talking about God as King.  Today, we get another great opportunity to do so.  Elihu gives us many images to ponder God’s awesome nature.  He makes the snow fall.  He makes the rain fall.  He gathers all the clouds in the sky.  He scatters the lightning.  God set the world in motion and He continues to control it all.

God is clearly the king of the universe.  That is a huge part of Elihu’s great message for us this morning.  But I think we can take this chapter and go farther with it than that.  I think we can push past simple awe of God and take it to our relationship with this creator.

Elihu asks a deep and probing question: shall it be told to Him that I would speak?  This is fundamentally the same question that Paul asks in Romans 9:20 as to whether the clay can look at its potter and demand to know why it was made in such a manner.  What right do we have to stand before God and question Him?  We can be in awe in His awesome presence.  But what right do we have to question Him as to why anything happens?

This is where the idea of competency comes in to play.  Am I competent to do what God asks me to do.  So often we think of competency in terms of just being able to accomplish what I should accomplish.  But there is another side of competency.  Am I able to refrain from doing that which I have not been called to do?

Who am I to stand before an almighty being and question Him?  Who am I to stand before my maker and think that He owes me any answer?

Of course, I am in relationship with God.  He wants me to grow closer to Him.  But in order to be a competent follower I must learn the difference between seeking truth and demanding God explain Himself.  It is not wrong to seek answers because we seek His truth.  But it is always wrong to make demands that God explain Himself when things go differently than we estimate they should go.

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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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Year 5, Day 129: Job 35

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Ambition, Appetite

• Appetite: We all have needs that need to be filled.  When we allow ourselves to be filled with the people and things that God brings into our life, we will be satisfied because our In will be in proper focus.  But when we try to fill ourselves with our own desires we end up frustrated by an insatiable hunger.
• Ambition: We all need a goal to which we can strive.  When our ambition comes from God, we find fulfillment in our obedience into that for which we have been equipped because our Out is in proper focus.  But when our ambition comes from ourselves, we find ourselves chasing after our own dreams and trying to find fulfillment in accomplishments of our own making.

Elihu focuses on two major points in his critique of Job.  Elihu asks how it is that Job can ask, “What benefit is there to being righteous?”  In other words, Job has questioned what good his righteousness has been to him.  The second point that Elihu raises is what is to us whether we bring anything to God.  In other words, why are we concerned with what we can add to God?

While I think Job is an amazing man and he lived an incredible life in incredibly horrible circumstances, I also think that Job is guilty on each of these points.  The one place of error that Job has been consistent is in questioning why God hasn’t defended him.  He is guilty of short-sightedness.  In fact, he is guilty of self-centered sight.  Job has occasionally been focused on what is in it for him.  This is rooted in appetite.  Job wants to know what benefit has come to him for his faith.  Of course, we know what benefit comes from relationship with God.  We also know that Job knows this, too.  Job knows his redeemer lives.  He just is forgetful and occasionally has a temporal mindset rather than an eternal mindset.  That’s often what appetite brings about.

As to Elihu’s point regarding what we bring to God, I think that this is an error of ambition.  Think about this for a second.  If God is omnipotent and omniscient, what can I possibly bring to God?  What can I bring to God that He already isn’t?  We want to be important.  We want to be recognized.  That’s ambition speaking.  But the truth is that what should be important is our humbleness before God that allows us to be used in His hand.  That’s what is truly important.

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Year 5, Day 128: Job 34

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

Often when I talk about character I talk about our character.  But occasionally it is important to remember to track the idea of character back to God and remember that He is the model of character.  We should be about getting our life to look like Him.  As we draw closer to Him, our character will naturally improve.

Fundamental to God’s character is His righteousness.  He is just.  Everything that He does is just.  If God does something, it is by definition right.  That’s what it means to be a perfect God.  Our God is not a God like many ancient cultures whose love needs to be bought and whose wrath needs to be appeased.  He is just.  He is righteous.  He never looks to harm us.  So long as we do right, we have nothing to fear from Him.  This is the argument that Elihu makes in this chapter, and he’s spot on correct.

This might seem like a no-brainer.  But it really is an important concept.  How often do I get angry at God for something that happens?  If I get angry at God for something that happens to me, am I not intrinsically questioning God’s character?  Think about this, and you’ll see what I mean.  If I get angry at God, then I am assuming that He had something to do with it.  So if I am assuming that He had something to do with what happened and I am angry, then I am calling His action into question.  If I call God’s action into question, then am I not fundamentally questioning God’s justness and therefore questioning God’s character?

Unfortunately, this is what Job has occasionally done in this book and this is the error that God will highlight in a few chapters when He speaks to Job.  Job does call God’s character into question by arguing that God should have protected Him better.  That’s just not right.  If Job thinks God had anything to do with what is happening and Job also believes God is just, he should not be able to be angry at God because there must be something at work that God is doing that is just.

This is a really difficult position to take in one’s life.  It is difficult to not get angry at God for not using His omnipotent power for our benefit.  It’s tough for us to see God as being willing to let evil come into our life for some greater purpose because we don’t want to care about the greater purpose.  We want to care about ourselves more than anything else.  Because of this, we end up not seeing God for what He is actually doing and question His character.

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Year 5, Day 127: Job 33

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: In:

• In: This is the word we use to express our relationships with our spiritual family.  These are often the people who hold us spiritually accountable.  They are the ones to whom we typically go for discussion and discernment.  These are the ones with whom we learn to share leadership.  They are the ones with whom we become family on mission.

Certainly Elihu isn’t perfect, and we’ll start to see some of his imperfections shortly.  But for right now, I think Elihu should get high marks for his approach.  Elihu appears to be really adept at building In.

Look at how he approaches Job.  First of all, Elihu doesn’t come to criticize Job.  He doesn’t come with his mind already made up.  He’s already listened to all the conversation that has happened thus far.  When he speaks to Job, he says, “I am toward God as you are.”  Elihu is looking to create common ground between him and Job.  He doesn’t want to walk in opposition; he wants to walk beside Job.

Furthermore, Elihu says to Job that he too was pinched of prom a piece of clay.  In other words, Elihu is saying that he understands that he is just a man.  He understands that he isn’t perfect and doesn’t have perfect insight.  Yes, he is confident that he has wisdom, but he is opening the conversation with Job by reminding Job that Elihu knows he’s human and finite.

Then he tells Job that he doesn’t need to fear him.  Job will not feel a tremendous weight from Elihu’s speech.  Job can be at ease, even if Elihu tries to speak truth into his life.

You see, what Elihu is trying to do is create some In with Job.  Elihu doesn’t want to dominate over Job, he wants to walk with Job.  Elihu doesn’t want to place himself as better than Job but as Job’s equal.  Elihu doesn’t just want to spout words of advice, he wants to listen first and then speak.

Elihu is showing grant competency at being In.  Elihu wants to walk through life with Job rather than stand in judgment over Job’s life.  This is all any of us can ask from our In.

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Year 5, Day 126: Job 32

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Competency

• Competency: Being able to accomplish what one is called to do.

I think it is interesting to hear Elihu speak.  I realize that he is human.  He is going to make his own fair share of mistakes with respect to theological teaching.  He’s not perfect.  But I think he really shows us a competent image in this opening chapter.

First of all, look at what Elihu does.  Elihu sits and listens.  He lets everyone else speak their words before opening up his mouth.  I realize that Elihu is young and he is likely respecting the older men.  But even so this is an incredibly competent approach!  When dealing with any issue, information is always helpful.  Elihu sits and listens and absorbs before speaking his mind.

Second, look at what Elihu says.  Elihu accuses Job’s friends of not developing true wisdom.  Elihu accuses them of not ending in wisdom.  He accuses them of having theology that is more self-justifying than anything else.  I think that this is a competent analysis.  I think this analysis of Elihu comes because Elihu spends so much time listening first.

In the end, I always look forward to Elihu’s speech.  As I said, he’ll make his mistakes, too.  But I think he sets a great example of how to posture oneself when preparing to address a situation.  Look.  Listen.  Observe.  When the time is right give a competent analysis rooted in legitimate observation.

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Year 5, Day 125: Job 31

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

I think that the last sentence above is my favorite definition of the word character.  Character is what you do when nobody is looking.  Character is what you do when you can get away with anything.  Character is who you are when the only person there to hold you accountable is yourself.

Job is a man of character.  Look at the laundry list of reasons he gives as to how his righteousness shines in his life.  Mind you, this is not a works-based righteousness argument.  Our righteousness should shine before mankind not so that we are saved but as a demonstration of our salvation.  This is what Job is saying here in this passage.

Job has cared for the widow and the orphan.  Job has treated those under him with respect and compassion.  Job has cared for the earth and has been careful of the demands that he has placed upon it.  Job has kept himself sexually pure and honest.  I can keep going, but this is a great report!

Of course Job isn’t innocent of wrongdoing.  Who among us is without sin?  But Job is a man of character.  On the last day that we hear Job’s words, it is refreshing to hear him finally come back to what matters most of all.  He is righteous before his God.

After all, isn’t that why this whole book started in the first place?  Job is righteous before God.  Satan could do his worst, but Job remained faithful and righteous.  Amen.

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Year 5, Day 124: Job 30

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Abide

• Abide: This is a moment, day, or even a season when we focus on God.  It is a time when we are rejuvenated by God.  It is the time for us to gather up what we will need for the coming growth after a season of pruning.  However, abiding is not the end.  We abide so that we can grow, bear fruit, prune, and abide again.

Job 30 gives us the perspective of a man who has been beaten down by life.  His life was going along very well with riches, family, and community.  But His wealth was taken away.  His family was lost.  His health declined.  Job went from leading a life of comfort to leading a very difficult life in an incredibly short time period.

It makes sense to hear Job speak as he does in this chapter.  I’m not saying that Job’s words are right, mind you.  But it makes sense.  Job has had everything stripped away from him and even his wife and closest friends come and tell him how wrong he must be.  I can’t blame him for saying that he feels like he’s a brother to jackals.  Job’s alone and living in a dark moment in life.

It is these moments in life when we can use a time for abide most.  When our life is crumbling round us, it is very easy to feel as though we are distant from God, too.  When our life is hard, it is easy to feel as though God has abandoned us.  At times like this we need to pay attention to our abiding.  We need to place special emphasis upon our connection to God.  While it is easy for us to feel distant to God, we must work hard to make sure that we do not feel that way.  God is always here and always present.  Only through our abiding with Him and trusting in His grace and glory will we come through the dark moments of life with strength and relationship intact.

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Year 5, Day 123: Job 29

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Ambition, Approval

• Ambition: We all need a goal to which we can strive.  When our ambition comes from God, we find fulfillment in our obedience into that for which we have been equipped because our Out is in proper focus.  But when our ambition comes from ourselves, we find ourselves chasing after our own dreams and trying to find fulfillment in accomplishments of our own making.
• Approval: We all need to feel as though we are accepted.  When we seek the approval of God, our Up is in the right place.  But when we seek the approval of other people besides God, we open the door to pursuing false gods and risk putting someone or something other than God in our Up position.

In this chapter, Job stumbles.  I can’t say that I blame him.  Here is a man whose life has been ripped from him.  He’s had to be a stalwart against the crushing opposition of his friends as they tried to convince him that he is to blame.  Is there any doubt that eventually he would stumble?

Job’s words in this chapter tell us that the perspective of his friends is getting to him.  He is beginning to equate his own desire for ambition with the approval of God.  When Job says, “when God watched over me,” he’s showing us that he’s feeling as though God only watches over him when his life is going well and he is successful.  This is a shame.

Don’t get me wrong.  We’re all human.  I can’t help feeling for Job here.  But we should remember that God watches over us at all times.  He walks with us – especially in the bad times.  This simply is who God is.  We may feel as though God is far from us, but that is an error of our perspective rather than a statement of reality.  Just because we want to equate God’s approval with our own ambition doesn’t mean that God isn’t there walking with us in our darkest moments of life.

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Year 5, Day 122: Job 28

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Guidance, Power

• Power: This is the natural outcome when we truly get our authority from the king.  When our authority is from God, we are equipped with His power to accomplish His will.  We act on His behalf in a world that He desperately loves.
• Guidance: God grants us His guidance.  Sometimes this guidance is God leading us away from temptation.  Sometimes this guidance is helping us to follow in a direction for which He has chosen.  Our default position should be to wait for God’s guidance and then follow when it comes.

Job gives us a really interesting perspective into humanity.  What can humanity not do?  We can shape the world around us.  We can pull precious minerals out of the earth and form them into new things.  We can change the flow of water, dam up rivers, create lakes and reservoirs.  We can dig into the earth and move mountains.  We as human beings are incredibly powerful.

However, what is the end of such power?  We are on the verge of our population becoming greater than our ability to produce food for it.  We are on the verge of having potable water shortages.  There are reports that say that within 50 years we may have burned through the earth’s resources of fossil fuels and even the uranium deposits that we use to generate electricity.  We have incredible human power, but do we have the wisdom to utilize it properly?

You see, human beings are incredibly powerful beings.  We are insightful and creative.  But when we utilize this power without wisdom, we ultimately endanger ourselves with respect to our long-term survival.  We need to use the power that God has naturally given to use over His creation in conjunction with the guidance that comes from His character.  Only when we use the power of God in conjunction with the wisdom of God are we truly living as He would have us live and in a matter that is for our own good.

Yes, we are powerful.  But as Job asks in this chapter, are we wise?

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Year 5, Day 121: Job 27

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Provision

• Provision: God gives us what we truly need.  God knows our needs better than we can know them.  We learn to trust God to provide for us.

Job’s questions today really inspired me to think about hope.  Where does my hope come from?  Where do I lean when I am weak or unable to see very far down the road?  Where does my strength come from when I need it and cannot muster it within myself?  When the world attacks me, where does my defense come?

For me, it is God.  So long as there is God, there is hope.  So long as there is God, I know I can survive.  So long as there is God, I have strength.

That’s what provision is all about.  I don’t think for a minute that God will give me everything I want.  But I do believe that God will provide for my needs.  I do believe that God will provide a kingdom for me to live in both in this world and the next.  When this world crashes, I believe that God is the one who can help me see what I cannot.

Provision is the domain of God.  I will have it no other way.

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Year 5, Day 120: Job 26

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: In

• In: This is the word we use to express our relationships with our spiritual family.  These are often the people who hold us spiritually accountable.  They are the ones to whom we typically go for discussion and discernment.  These are the ones with whom we learn to share leadership.  They are the ones with whom we become family on mission.

I’ve talked about In a lot since beginning Job, probably more so in Job than in any other book.  But I think this is a really important dynamic to at least the first half of the book of Job.  When the chips are down, we need people around us.  When we are struggling, we need our In.  When we are spending all sorts of time pondering our life, we need people who can be there beside us.

Look at Job’s continued complaints regarding his friends all throughout Job and in the opening verses of this chapter.  Job complains that his people aren’t listening to him.  He complains that they are just here to prove their point to him rather than walk with him.  They are there to convict him without even listening to whether or not conviction is even necessary in the first place!

I think this is a huge point to consider as we look out into the world.  Yes, we are all sinners.  Yes, every one of us need to repent and change of our ways.  But the truth is that we don’t need that rubbed in our face all the time.  What we need is people who can listen to us, walk beside us, encourage us, and correct us when needed.

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Year 5, Day 119: Job 25

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.

What a great chapter of Job!  And no, before you ask, it isn’t because it is so short.  Neither is it because this is the last of the replies of Job’s friends that we have in this book.  What we have here in these verses is a simplistic perspective on humanity.

We are not righteous.  We will never compare to God.  We pale in comparison to the great Almighty.  We’re not God, and we never will be.

You see, God is king of the universe.  He set it into motion.  He made it out of nothing.  He hung the stars in the sky.  He shaped the image of man in His own image.  He is the king.

However, there’s an incredible message here.  While He may be king, He wants relationship with us.  While He may be king, He wants to know us intimately.  He’s not some great and far off king.  He’s a king that doesn’t care about our inability to compare to Him.  He lends us His righteousness.  He gives us a promise of a better life in the eternal.

Ultimately, Bildad is right on the surface but wrong where it counts.  We’ll never match up to God.  That much is true.  But that doesn’t matter to God.  God lends us His righteousness and desires relationship with us anyways.  God is an amazing king.

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Year 5, Day 118: Job 24

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Kingdom

• Kingdom: We live in God’s creation, but it is fallen.  We do not yet live in the fullness of God’s Kingdom.  But we do know that the Kingdom of God is drawing near.  We do get to see glimpses of the kingdom each and every time that God works in us and through us as He tries to demonstrate Himself to the world.

I have often thought as Job thinks in this chapter.  The wicked prosper.  The powerful oppress the powerless.  The masters are lords over those who could benefit from them.  People steal from the defenseless.  Our world is messed up, and it doesn’t really seem to be getting any better.  In fact, I’ve heard many people say that our culture is in decline, not improving.

This is absolutely a pessimistic view of the world.  I think it has merit and is based in truth.  But it is admittedly pessimistic.  To say that our culture is slipping into moral and ethical decline is a sad commentary on our culture.

It leads to the question that Job asks.  How can God stand by and watch?  How can God watch while the wicked prosper?  How can God sit back and deny justice to the righteous?  How can God be king of this kingdom if the people who aspire to know Him are seldom prosperous and lifted up by the world?  If God is king, why do His people not rise to the top of His kingdom?

I think there are two answers to this.  The first answer is deeply theological.  The answer is that God’s kingdom is eternal.  We cannot say who really is rising to the top of God’s kingdom until we get to the eternal.  Who are we to say that after a few decades of living in this world that we have any ability to testify as to who God is allowing to be elevated?

The second answer is rooted more in the truth about humanity.  In God’s kingdom, who among us is really righteous?  Who among us truly deserves God’s love more than we deserve God’s wrath?  When I lift up our hand against some injustice done to me, am I really innocent and blameless?  Am I without sin?

The truth is that in God’s kingdom we are all there by God’s grace.  No human being deserves to be there.  No human being deserves to stand in the presence of God.  We will all be there by God’s grace.  What a great day it will be!  But none of us will deserve it.

Job’s right on one account.  The unrighteous prosper.  The unrighteous go unpunished.  People oppress one another.  But I’m just as guilty as the next person.  My life is full of sin, too.  God has prospered me when I don’t deserve it. 

That’s what it means to be a part of God’s kingdom.  We see it.  We even see injustice within it.  But we are all in it by God’s grace.

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Year 5, Day 117: Job 23

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Abide

• Abide: This is a moment, day, or even a season when we focus on God.  It is a time when we are rejuvenated by God.  It is the time for us to gather up what we will need for the coming growth after a season of pruning.  However, abiding is not the end.  We abide so that we can grow, bear fruit, prune, and abide again.

I truly think that this whole chapter revolves around Job’s inability to abide with God in the midst of his pain and suffering.  Job complains that he feels that he cannot be in the presence of God.  He cannot talk to God face to face.  He cannot explain his condition to God.

I’ll admit that sometimes abiding is quite difficult.  It can be difficult in the midst of our pain to abide.  It can be difficult in the midst of our worry to abide.  It can be especially difficult to abide in the midst of our doubt.  And if we cannot abide, it is difficult to feel connected to God and feel as though we are able to do anything pleasing to Him.  When we can’t abide, it is easy to feel as though life is pointless and shallow.  I think that’s where Job is today.  He is wrestling with life because he feels as though he cannot be in the presence of God.

However, once more I find that I love Job because he is such a great example of how to wrestle with God.  Even though he is groaning and complaining that he cannot be in the presence of God in order to plead his case, Job is certain that if he could that God would hear him.  Job is certain that God would listen.  He is certain that God would provide an answer that would make it all make sense.

This is why I love Job.  Job is honest with himself.  He can’t abide.  He is struggling with life and struggling to make sense of it all.  He doesn’t understand what on earth God is doing and why it is happening to him.  But through it all, he does not lose faith.  Whether he can abide or not, Job maintains the belief that if he could abide then it would be exactly what he needs right now.  Job is faithful to the fact that he knows that he just needs time with God.  Job is faithful to the truth that to make sense of life we need to have our moments in the presence of a living God.

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Year 5, Day 116: Job 22

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Father

• Father: This is the pinnacle of the Covenant Triangle.  God is the Father.  He is the creator.  He is love.  Our relationship with the Father is rooted in His love for us.  We get our identity through Him.  When the Father is in our life, obedience becomes clear.

Eliphaz is annoying at the beginning of this chapter.  He asks if a man can be profitable to God.  He also asks if it is pleasing to the Almighty if I am right.  In both of these questions Eliphaz is wrong!

You see, Eliphaz is trying to make the point that we are nothing to God.  How does my being right change God?  How can I bring anything of profit to God?  And in a very shallow sense of the questions there is a point.  God is God regardless of what I bring to the table.

However, what Eliphaz has neglected is the fact that God is not just our King but also our Father.  Does a father have joy when his children imitate the goodness within him?  Does a father take pleasure in their children choosing rightly?  Of course he does!

The same is true with God.  Our Father takes great pleasure when we choose His ways over the selfishness that lies within each of us.  Our Father loves the moments when we are rooted in His love.  Our Father can take us, mold, us, and make us into very profitable tools in His hands.  We do have value in the eyes of the Father.  We do have joy in the eyes of the Father.

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