Year 8, Day 145: Ephesians 4

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As we turn to Ephesians 4, Paul’s talk about the salvation that comes from God turns to how we should be affected by it.  God does save us because He wants to be in relationship with us.  However, it is God’s desire that we change when we have His Spirit within us.  Dwelling with God should change us.

The first change is that we should be a people of forgiveness and compassion.  God was compassionate and forgave us; we should do the same.  We need to bear with one another’s faults.  We need to be a people who are truthful and honest with one another, not a people who speak soothing and hollow words.  We are to deal honestly with one another.  We should be a people who reflect the nature of Christ within!

Another change that should occur is within our demeaner.  We should be a people of peace.  We should be a people of patience.  We should be humble.  We should be gentle.  Our demeaner should be one who looks to the other instead of looking to ourselves.

Finally, there is a third effect.  We should be drawn into unity.  If there is one God and one Spirit, then we who have that Spirit within should be able to be united with one another.  How will we convince the world that there is one God if we are not able to be united as His people?

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Year 8, Day 144: Ephesians 3

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We continue to experience Paul’s greater theme for this book.  That theme is the salvation of the Gentiles.  God wants anyone to be able to come to Him, not just the Hebrew people.  This is what Paul continues to call the mystery of Christ.  We are saved by grace, not by our works or by our pedigree.

What’s neat about this chapter is that Paul demonstrates several effects of this reality.  One such effect is that Christ may dwell in our hearts.  We can know what it is like to dwell with Christ here and now.  We can have the strength of God’s Spirit within us.  This is a great effect of His mystery.

This gives us another effect.  Through His Spirit, we can grow in our wisdom and understanding.  We can live in a love that surpasses knowledge and understanding, reflecting the very love that God gives to us.  We can know the fullness of the measure of God.  These are all a part of the mystery of God.

There is external effect, too.   Through the mystery of Christ, God can establish His people.  Through His people, God can make His wisdom known to the world.  God can make His wisdom known to the heavens.  Through His mystery, God reveals Himself to all of creation around us.  God is working not just for our sake, but for all of creation.

In the end, this is a wonderful cycle of God’s grace.  He is gracious to us, inviting us to become the next level of demonstration of His grace to others.  God cares deeply about us, but He cares just as deeply about those who do not yet know Him and who need an opportunity to do so.  It comes around full circle to relationship with God.  That is indeed a mystery.  God desires to be in relationship with us.  He desires to dwell with us.

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Year 8, Day 143: Ephesians 2

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Today’s chapter is largely about one significant word: adoption.  The author of Ephesians reminds us that we are saved by grace.  It isn’t our works that saves us.  It isn’t our pedigree.  It is God’s grace that works through faith.  We are saved by grace in faith.

This leads us to the idea of adoption.  We cannot come to God on our own.  He comes to us and adopts us.  He comes to us because it is the only way it can be done.  He comes to us to bring us into His family.  He extends relationship.  He extends belonging.

The reality is that this is true of both Jews and Gentiles alike.  Could Abraham save himself?  Could Abraham bring himself to God?  Of course not!  God had to come to Abraham and offer covenant with Abraham.  Yes, Abraham was a man after God’s own heart.  Abraham, however, was still not righteous.  Abraham was a man who needed God to come to Him and offer him relationship.

Every human being who is in God’s family is there by adoption.  We all only come to God at His invitation.  We are all a people of grace.  That should be something that unites us instead of divides us.  It is Christ who is the foundation of the relationship that binds us to God and each other.

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Year 8, Day 142: Ephesians 1

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Today we start another equally short book authored by the apostle Paul.  Galatians was a very gritty book, teaching practical theology and making a defense for salvation by grace through Christ alone.  Ephesians is a far loftier book, speaking prolifically about Christ and our gift from God through Him.  Make no mistake, though.  Both books are firmly centered on the significance of Christ.

What has God given to us?  He has given His own Son to us.  Through that gift we gain adoption in His family.  We also gain forgiveness of our sins.  He gives us holiness.  He giver us holiness.  He bestows a new life upon us.

He does more than this, though.  He gives us an inheritance.  He allows us to look ahead in the time to come and anticipate life eternal with Him!  He allows us to be His praise!  He chooses us through whom He works so that people might see Him.  He bestows upon us an incredible future!

He gives still more to us.  How do we know that all of this is true?  We get the Holy Spirit.  God comes and dwells with us.  He seals us.  The Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our salvation.  With the Holy Spirit within us we can know that God’s promise is not only true, but ours.

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Year 8, Day 141: Galatians 5 & 6

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As Paul gets ready to end his letter, he continues to hit home with respect to truth.  The first thing that he tells us is that we should be careful to know from where our salvation comes.  If we are saved by grace through Christ, the we are not saved by the Law through our works.  If we think that we are saved through the Law, then Christ has done nothing for us.  Paul isn’t saying that the Law is useless in Christ; he is simply saying that we should be confident that our salvation comes from Him.  Christ saves us, the Law illustrates how much we need Him.

Paul then speaks about love. What does it look like when a person is living in Christ?  We live in the same kind of love with which Christ lived.  A person who follows Christ makes sacrifices for the other.  He forgives the other.  He is patient with the other.  He makes peace with the other.  He helps the other.  He celebrates with the other.  The person who follows Christ looks like Christ is living through him.

People who are living in Christ do not provoke one another.  People who are living in Christ are not envious.  We are not haughty.  We bear one another in love.

In the end, Paul gives us a great perspective.  Circumcision – or not being circumcised – is nothing.  What is something is being a new creation.  It doesn’t matter if we are wine or grape juice for communion people.  It doesn’t matter if we are worship on Sunday or Saturday people.  It doesn’t matter if we are King James or English Standard kind of people.  What matters is that we are a new creation.  What matters is that Christ lives in us and through us.  That is what matters.  That should be our focus.

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Year 8, Day 140: Galatians 4

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There are multiple levels that we can go with this lesson today.  I think the most readily insightful teaching is the one about law versus gospel.  Paul says it in multiple ways.  Law equates to bondage; gospel equates to freedom.  Law equates to immaturity; gospel equates to maturity.

As I was taking this all in, an analogy about human civilization hit me.  I’ve begun to notice that the more we legislate people’s behaviors, the less they seem to be able to behave in society.  I’m not talking about rebellion, I’m actually talking about decision-making capacity.  The more laws we make, the less we teach people to think.  The more laws we make, the more restricted we allow people’s brains to become.  They grow unaccustomed to making decisions because the law tells them exactly what they cannot do.  Since they become unaccustomed to making decisions, when an opportunity for a decision comes along, they are more apt to make the wrong one.  We don’t want a civilization where people are legislated into right choices because it’s the only choice available to them!  We want a civilization where people grow up to make right choices because they have been taught how to make good decisions and they want to make good decisions.  Righteous people come out of freedom, not legalism!

Here’s another analogy.  It can be amazing to watch someone who has only gone to a specific restaurant suddenly go to a new restaurant.  Take a child that has only ever been to McDonalds and only ever gotten the hamburger kids meal.  You pick them up and put them in a restaurant that has a good, yet normal, selection of food.  In most cases, even though the child could have anything they want, they will want the hamburger – and probably not even want lettuce, onion, or tomato on it.  They will want a bun, some meat, and few condiments.  That’s what legalism does to people!  That’s why Paul wants people to be free in Christ, not bound by the Law.

Another direction that I went as I read today’s verse is that Paul seems to be asking the Galatians why they reverted back to legalism.  Paul wants to know why someone would choose bondage when freedom is available!  Paul wants to know why someone would go into a wonderful restaurant professionally trained chef and voluntarily choose to order the plain burger.  Why do human being so often prefer to be bound than free?

The answer is usually easy to discern: simplicity.  Choice is difficult.  Making good decisions is a hard skill to master.  Learning how to choose what is best instead of what is fun or easy takes maturity.  That’s why legalism doesn’t lead to maturity!  It is far easier to get up and go through the motions every day than to get up and make meaningful decision after meaningful decision.  It’s easier to believe in a religion where there is only one right course of action than it is to believe in a God who offers you a plethora of right decisions and knows that the opportunity for making a plethora of bad decisions also exists!

Why did the Galatians go back to the Law?  Why does the child who only knows hamburgers order a hamburger at every restaurant?  It’s easier.  It’s not a matter of better.  It’s often not even a matter of happier.  It’s a matter of ease.  Human beings are creatures of ease, which is what makes us creatures of habit.

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Year 8, Day 139: Galatians 3

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Galatians 3 is a powerful chapter to read, especially in moments of judgmental thought.  We are heirs to the promise because of faith, not works.  It is not our perfection that appeals to God, but our heart.  It is not the amount of sin in our life that is paramount; it is whether we are after His own heart.  It is not our great sacrifice than God desires, but rather it is a broken and contrite heart.

When I see people capable of being condemned, I need to remember that I cannot know their heart.  I need to remember that God looked past my condemnation to give me grace.  He doesn’t want me to live under the burden of my condemnation.  He does want me to recognize my sin, but He wants me to live under His righteousness and His grace.

There’s a deeper meaning to the consequences of this passage.  So often we like those who are like us.  Perhaps we only love those who act like we do.  But that’s not what God is teaching us through Paul’s words.  We are heirs by our faith, not our works.  Our spiritual family is not the people who look like us or act like us.  Our spiritual family is made up of all the people who have equally flawed lives as us but whose hearts are inclined towards the same God.  Being God’s heir is an internal state, not an eternal state.

Don’t get me wrong.  Faith without works is dead.  We should see evidence of faith around us.  But we will not see perfection.  We shouldn’t even expect it!  What we see will be people trying to put forth the faith within them.  We will see success; we will see failure.  We will be able to celebrate; we will need to forgive.  The neat part of this is that in this understand we see the mind of God.  We imitate Him.

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Year 8, Day 138: Galatians 2

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Paul continues to speak to us about his own life.  He has gone before the disciples; they didn’t make him do anything other than what Christ ahs entrusted him to do.  Paul has even challenged Peter’s authority in making people live a certain way because Peter himself doesn’t always follow all of the rules.  Paul’s own ministry speaks to his own love of God and his desire for obedience.  Paul’s point is that he is living the life he preaches.

What is the life he preaches?  Paul is living a life that salvation comes only through Christ.  It isn’t about what I eat.  It isn’t about putting in the right hours.  It isn’t about being seen doing the right things by the right people.  It isn’t about rote repetition of meaningless behaviors.  It is about Christ, His love for us, and His death on the cross.  We are saved by His grace, not by any circumstance of our own life.

What does this reality look like in our life?  Paul tells us matter-of-factly.  We have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us.  It’s that simple, really.  Christ died for us so that we can live in relationship with God.  If we truly believe that, why would we spend time pursuing our own selfish desires any longer?

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Year 8, Day 137: Galatians 1

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As Paul writes this letter to the Galatians, we are reminded of several crucial truths.  First, and most importantly, there is no other gospel.  The gospel that we have received is the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Salvation comes through Him.  God sent His Son to make a way back to relationship with Him because there is no other way.  We can’t do it ourselves.  There is but one way to the Father.  That way is through the Son.

We also learn a few other truths.  Human beings like to turn to other truths.  We want to turn to a gospel that is easier to follow.  We want to preach a works-based salvation because it gives us permission to judge.  We want to preach a universal salvation because it gives us permission to sin freely and follow the lusts of our hearts.  We want to preach salvation through our social class because it allows us to think that human popularity equates to divine approval.  We want to preach a salvation through our bank account because it gives us permission to think that the pursuit of our financial dreams equates to God’s approval of our life.  We want all kinds of other gospels.

How often do we really want the gospel that Paul received from Christ?  Do we want to follow a leader who promotes servant-leadership and self-sacrifice?  Do we want to follow a leader who takes a popular up-and-coming Jewish leader in Paul and turns him into an evangelist who finds an incredible amount of worldly rejection everywhere he goes?

We may not always want to choose it, but there is no other gospel. If we want relationship with God, we do it His way.  We follow a servant leader.  We deny ourselves.  We spend ourselves.  We go through this life seeking His will over our own.

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Year 8, Day 136: Job 42

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I really love the end of the book of Job.  It is one of my favorite moments of forgiveness recorded in the Bible.  Some of my other moments are the washing of Jesus’ feet and the man healed from the possession of a legion of demons.  Why do I love the book of Job’s ending so much?  It’s simple.  The right thing happens.

First of all, look at Job.  Job gets the message.  He was righteous.  He spoke righteous words.  God affirms how Job spoke, even!  However, Job also is not innocent.  He hears the critique and accepts the rebuke.  He humbles himself before God.  That’s what should happen when people who do wrong are corrected.  Job is vindicated; but, he accepts it humbly.

Second, I love that Job’s friends are rebuked.  Actually, to be correct, I love how the rebuking of Job’s friends is handled.  God chastises them and affirms that they are wrong. He specifically says that they spoke poorly on His behalf.  God doesn’t appreciate when we say the wrong thing, call it truth, and attribute it to Him.  God is not the God of things that sound right or things that feel true.  God is the God of truth.  When we attribute something to God, it should be truth, not just logical.

Perhaps even more importantly, I love that God tells them to sacrifice and then hope that He will listen to Job’s prayer.  It’s a very not-so-subtle acknowledgement that God doesn’t particularly want to consider their own prayers.  Don’t get me wrong, I have no doubt that God would accept and listen to their genuine prayer.  There’s a difference between sending a message and actually doing something.  God is righteous, He hears a righteous prayer.  But God would rather hear Job’s prayer.  I love that thought.

Lastly, God gives us a promise through action.  God reminds us that He will make things right in the end. Job’s wealth is restored.  His family gathers around him once more.  His public reputation is reinstated.  This doesn’t mean that God will always do it in our lifetime.  But just as God raised Jesus from the dead, God will raise us into eternal life and make it right in the end.  In the end, we will live with Him in life and peace eternal.

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Year 8, Day 135: Job 41

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God has one last major criticism for Job. Job can’t explain creation; he wasn’t there.  Job can’t also subdue creation; he isn’t powerful enough.  In that light, Job can’t exactly do a whole lot besides experience creation.  He can’t wrestle Leviathan.  He can’t pull it out of its lair.  He can’t make it sign to him.  He can’t divide it among the merchants.  He can’t do much.

I’m not trying to pick on Job.  If you want to be honest, I can’t do that, either.  I’m no better than Job.  When I try to stand up against the things of this world, I show more about my weaknesses than about my strength.  I show my faults far more than I show my expertise.

This is a great thing to learn about humanity.  We think we are so strong.  Communal, we have done great things.  Look at our cities.  Look at our medicine.  Look at our transportation. Look at our great works of literature and art.  We can be a great people.  However, we aren’t perfect.  One good earthquake and it can take down a city.  Drop in a large enough meteor and you can cause some serious damage.  Put in a drought and life becomes quite inconvenient.  Collectively, we are powerful beings.  But we are not as grand as we think.

That’s God’s point to Job.  We tend to have bigger opinions of ourselves then we truly deserve.  We can do great things.  We can make beautiful objects.  But we’re nowhere near eternal or omnipotent.  We have no right to stand before God and hold Him accountable.  He is our redeemer and He will save.  That is His promise to us.  That doesn’t mean that we will always live a perfect life or an easy life.  Yet, God is always with us.

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Year 8, Day 134: Job 40

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God gives one last word to Job as we begin this chapter.  Shall someone who knows fault challenge God, who doesn’t?  That puts us all pretty much in place.  As Jesus says, let the one who is without sin throw the first stone.  Being angry – even being angry with God – is a natural human instinct.  However, it’s still wrong.  We have no place to find fault with God.  We have no reason to contend with Him.

I continue to love how Job handles himself.  After hearing from God, he has a short reply.  After receiving a direct challenge from God, he knows enough to just stop talking.  This is the sum of Job’s ultimate argument: “I’m sorry, God.  You’re right.  I’m shutting up, now.”  I love that.  How many times when I am in the wrong would I not be better served by saying, “Wow, I am wrong.  I’m shutting up, now.”

For the rest of the chapter, God reminds Job and Job’s friends about life.  God reminds Job of two things.  First, Job should be humble because one of the largest and most powerful land animals that cannot be tamed, the behemoth, gets all of his strength by eating grass.  This is a display of God’s power.  God can make something that gets all of its nutrients from grass strong and respectable.  How much more can God do with human beings who have a brain with which we can think and plan!

Second, God reminds Job what he should be doing with his time.  Instead of wondering where God is in the midst of Job’s suffering, Job should have been going about God’s will.  Job should have been standing up for the oppressed.  He should have been making sure the proud were humbled.  He should have been resisting the wicked.  This is an incredible reminder.  How often do we allow our worries, concerns, and troubles to distract us from being obedient to the calling that God has for us?

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Year 8, Day 133: Job 39

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In case you thought that God was done with Job, He’s not.  This whole chapter is a continuation of God’s discourse against Job.  One point to understand is that should we lose our humility and become brazen against God, we need to be big enough to take it.  God is big enough to listen to my wrongly stated rebuke and then forgive me when I repent.  I need to be big enough to understand that with forgiveness comes teaching so that I can grow and understand and become humble again.  That’s part of what makes Job great in this story.  He does become brazen, but he also accepts the rebuke and learns from it.

God continues.  Yesterday, God was reminding Job all about the big processes of nature about which Job is essentially clueless: creation, sunrise, rain, snowfall, drought, etc.  These are all things that Job cannot control, much less explain.  Today, though, God takes a different tack – and I love it.  Today God switches to the nature around him that Job can control.  God talks about things like horses and eagles and ostriches.  We all know that man is to have dominion over the earth, right?

For me, the crux of this whole chapter is in the question that God asks Job in Job 39:12.  Do you have faith that the wild ox will return to you and serve you?  You see, that’s one of the main differences between God and human beings.  We get what we want by force.  How do we domesticate animals?  We stick them in pens so they cannot go where they choose.  How do we train animals?  We deprive them of all experience except the ones that we want them to have so that they respond the way we want them to respond.  Some animals are more happily domesticated than others.  We can train dogs pretty easily.  Horses are not too badly trained.  Oxen are a little more difficult.  Cats are sometimes downright stubborn.  Many wild animals like snakes and fish are downright impossible.

Human beings dominate the earth by sheer force of will.  We dominate the land around us – even the lesser people – by giving them no other choice.  The control that we have isn’t because we really have the power; we exert control by limiting others!

That’s not how God works at all.  God exerts control because He knows the nature of things.  Things want to serve God.  The wild ox in the example that I am lifting up will return to God not because it has no other choice but because it knows God and it wants to.  That’s the difference between God and us.  We want to be in control, so we exert our will.  God is in control, so He can give freedom.

What an incredible analogy for salvation, by the way.  Why is it that we cannot save ourselves?  We cannot save ourselves because we do not really have the power.  The harder we try to save ourselves, the more we miss the mark because we are exerting our own will.  God offers us salvation, but He does it by giving us freedom.

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Year 8, Day 132: Job 38

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In this chapter we get our second glimpse of God in this book.  Remember what the first glimpse was all about.  The first glimpse was God lifting up Satan as an example of a righteous paragon.  We saw God tell Satan about Job, confident that Job’s faith would endure to the end, even in the midst of persecution.  Before we move on to the perspective of God that we see in this chapter, it’s important to point something out.  God was right.  Job remained faithful.  Job is still in relationship with God.  That is the greater context that allows this chapter and the chapters that follow to happen at all.  God was right, Job is still faithful.

That being said, we do get an opportunity to see a different side of God in this chapter.  This side is often seen as wrathful and a righteous judge.  Those perspectives aren’t wrong.  This chapter is all about putting Job in his place.  God takes the opportunity here to demonstrate why He is God and why Job is not.  While Job has been faithful, he has not been without mistakes.  He has questioned God’s motives.  He has accused God of being far away and not listening.  While Job is still in relationship with God, Job has erred.  It’s time for God to point out those errors.

That’s what I love about this chapter.  When the side of God that is the righteous judge steps up, God pulls no punches.  Can Job explain the origin of light?  Can job hold back the water?  Can Job explain exactly how the earth was formed and exactly what it contains?  Can Job command the morning to happen?  The reality is that Job – and all of us – pale in comparison to God.  We think we are so smart, but we are really so little.  We understand only those things that we realize we should understand.  To put it another way, we don’t know what we don’t know.

Human beings are marvelous things, but we are limited.  We don’t understand how much we don’t know and can’t explain!  That’s why the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.  Every good day should start with a healthy reminder of our human limitations.  It keeps us humble.  That’s God’s point to Job.  While Job is in relationship with God, he has lost his humbleness.  Job has gotten brazen and God knows that it is time to put Job in his place and put his brazenness in check.

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Year 8, Day 131: Job 37

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I will give Elihu some credit today.  I think that he does will to focus upon the majesty of God.  In truth, I think that most of the mistakes made in this book of the Bible were made when people quit focusing on the majesty of God and instead started to focus on their own burden.  When we focus on God, our perspective is assured.

What do we know about God’s majesty?  God commands the snow to fall, and it is beautiful!  God commands the rain to fall and it is nourishing to the earth.  God commands the light to shine and we feel its warmth and are energized by the light.  God’s display of His grace and His providence are utterly amazing.

Perhaps more importantly, when we ponder the amazing nature of His love we set ourselves up for humbleness.  When I think about how God makes it rain, I realize that I can’t do that.  I can understand how rain happens.  I can talk about dew points, condensation, temperature variations in air, and how these things affect relative humidity.  But I can’t make it rain.  In fact, I can’t even explain why it rains nourishing rain on our planet, yet many other planets have harmful acid rains.  I can’t fathom how it came to be that we live on a planet with all of God’s provision as we need it!

Elihu does well to focus Job and his friends on God.  It’s Elihu’s last words, and he chooses wisely.  I know I would be better off if I spent more time focusing on the majesty of God.

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Year 8, Day 130: Job 36

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For the most part, I think Elihu gets much right in this passage.  Perhaps the greatest point is that we need to extol God’s greatness more.  We need to make sure that we do not forget to extol God’s greatness.  God is great, all the time.  God is abundantly great.  God’s greatness is ever-present!

Who can explain God’s wisdom?  Who can fathom His hand at work? Who can anticipate the full coming of His grace?  Who among us are not amazed at the abundance of His love?  We need to extol this greatness.

I also think that there is also a hint of truth in what Elihu says about wicked people dying early in life.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to talk about the opposite in the next paragraph.  The hint of truth, however, is that we often do reap what we sew.  When we make bad choices, there are consequences.  If we make bad enough choices, we might even snuff our life out before our time.  He does allow people to be delivered into the consequences of their own choices.

That being said, it’s also time to lift up the old argument against this line of thinking.  While people do suffer the consequences of their actions, it is not fair to say that all wicked people die young and all righteous people live to an old age.  We cannot assume those with an unfortunate life story are evil and those who live in luxury are righteous.  It simply is a fair conclusion to reach and it is a worse conclusion to teach to others!

God’s grace falls upon the evil and the righteous.  God’s generosity is bestowed upon all to the measure of Gods choosing.  That is something for which we should praise God.

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Year 8, Day 129: Job 35

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In this chapter, Elihu condemns another of Job’s approaches.  Elihu condemns Job’s accusations of God refusing to hear him.  I do have to stop and give Elihu some credit here.  I do agree with Elihu in premise.  God does hear us.  God is aware of our turmoil.  God is aware of our persecution.  Who are we to think that God doesn’t hear or care?  As Elihu says, that is human pride at work.

However, Elihu isn’t without his own flaws in his argument.  First of all, Elihu is once again making the argument that God isn’t listening because Job isn’t righteous.  We continue to hear the tried and true humanistic reasoning.  We know the problem.  God isn’t punishing Job; God is teaching about faith.

I will give Elihu a little more credit, though.  One of the arguments that he makes does have a little merit.  I think we could all learn to take his suggestions in Job 35:10-11.  We should remember that God is the ultimate source of truth and teaching.  We could stand to remember a little more often about the how God is the source of wisdom.  Who among us couldn’t stand to remember that God is our maker?

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Year 8, Day 128: Job 34

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Elihu is emboldened in this passage.  However, he is young.  Elihu returns to the tried and tried – and still wrong – approach that Job is wrong.  Job can’t be righteous because calamity has befallen him.  Job can’t be righteous because God doesn’t do an unjust act.  Elihu assumes that Job’s circumstances are proof of his guilt.

Unfortunately, what Elihu is showing us is that sometimes we talk to much and don’t listen enough.  Elihu should have listened to his own words!  Only two chapters ago Elihu was onto something.  Elihu opened up the possibility that there was something else going on that nobody had considered.  How quickly has Elihu forgotten his own advice and returned to human logic!

The reality is that God hasn’t punished Job.  This isn’t a trial at all.  God is proving how faithful Job will be, even when faced with the worst consequence possible short of death.  Job is a case study, not a criminal.

What a powerful reminder.  How often do we think that when life is going well that it is proof of our proximity to God?  How often do we think that when our life goes poorly it is proof of God’s distance from us?  How much better would it be to remember that God is always ear to us and to have an eternal focus!

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Year 8, Day 127: Job 33

Theological Commentary: Click Here

When Elihu speaks, I think he speaks with great technique.  Elihu empathizes with Job by saying that he is with God as Job is.  Elihu doesn’t deny that Job is walking with God.  Elihu is trying to put Job in as best of a position as possible to listen.

The second thing that Elihu does that is wise is to show that he has been listening.  Elihu quotes Job.  When Elihu quotes Job, he isn’t quoting him to mock him, or twist his words, or to use them as ammunition against Job.  Instead, Elihu is quoting Job to lay a common reference point.  He is trying to demonstrate to Job that he is willing to meet him where he is.

With these two pieces of arguing done, Elihu starts his own thought.  Elihu tries to tell Job that there is another way to see the things that happen to us.  Instead of seeing the hand of God as punishment for wrong-doing, Elihu teaches that God sometimes has things happen to us to teach us lessons.  I believe that there is a good bit of truth here.  Sometimes God does let us suffer the consequences of our own choices to give us time to think about the cause and effect nature of life.

However, I also think this is where Elihu goes astray.  In trying to justify God’s action, Elihu goes to far.  God isn’t trying to teach Job a lesson.  God is actually trying to teach a lesson to the people around Job, especially Satan.  The lesson isn’t so much for Job as it is for us!

God is trying to show that faith can endure great hardship.  God is trying to show that faith is the only way through inexplicable hardship!  God is tying to show that the most powerful force that we as human beings can experience is a hope that comes with relationship to Him.  That’s the point of Job.  Job already knows this, although the reminder probably doesn’t hurt.  But it is our lesson to learn just as much as it is for Job and his friends.

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Year 8, Day 126: Job 32

Theological Commentary: Click Here

In Job 32 we meet Elihu.  Elihu is an interesting perspective in the study of humanity.  Elihu is younger in years than Job or his friends, so he has been silent up until now.  However, while he does wait to speak, he speaks nonetheless.

Elihu speaks because he feels the need to defend his own perception of righteousness.  In this attitude, we can see an issue with youthfulness.  Youth often see the world in black-and-white.  With the youth, there is often only right and wrong.   There is their perspective and then the different other perspectives.  Youths have not learned the skill of compromise.  They have not learned to see the beautiful shades of gray between the contrasting black-and-white poles.

Elihu also feels the impulse to stand up and defend.  He feels the need to be the protector.  He is like the young knight riding off to fight the unconquerable dragon.  Elihu does not understand that wisdom takes time.  He does not realize that often the things we say need time to be absorbed, pondered, and internalized.  Truth is not often recognized in the moment it is spoken.  Truth is recognized after it can be tested and contemplated in the mind.

That being said, we do need to respect what Elihu brings to the conversation.  He brings energy.  He brings passion.  He brings an urgency to the discussion.  These things are not bad things when harnessed correctly.  We should want to take what youth have to offer us and put it to proper use instead of mocking it and discarding it as rash or brazen.  While Elihu is prone to making mistakes because of his youth, he brings qualities that can be shaped and tempered properly.

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Year 8, Day 125: Job 31

Theological Commentary: Click Here

In this chapter we get to hear Job’s final defense.  There isn’t much to say here that hasn’t already been said.  Job reflects upon his life and confesses that he ahs tried to live as virtuous life as possible.  He has tried to care for the poor.  He has remained faithful to his own wife.  He has tried to look after the land and the animals within his possession.  He has tried to work with those around him.  He’s tried to be a good citizen.

The thing that I really appreciate about Job’s words here is that he does give room for error.  Many may read Job’s words in a haughty manner, as though Job is declaring that nothing can find fault in him.  Naturally, we know this is not true.  We all have faults.  None of us are perfect.  We’ve even seen a few of Job’s faults along the way!  While Job is testifying that he has lived as good of a life as possible, he is also giving room for the possibility that something may have cause against him.

As Job ends this passage, I also can’t help but remember who it is that Job has consistently says will be his judge.  Ultimately, Job knows that he will be judged by God.  Furthermore, let’s not forget that Job has already professed in earlier chapters that he knows who His redeemer is: God!  This is the perfect capstone to this chapter.  Job is God’s; Job is God’s to save.  Job has tried, and where Job has failed God can make right.

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Year 8, Day 124: Job 30

Theological Commentary: Click Here

There are three really good thoughts that come out of Job’s utterances in this chapter.  First, Job mourns the way that he is being treated.  Job can know the difference because he used to be treated well.  He was treated well because of his status and position in the community.  When he had lots of money, he rubbed shoulders with important people.  That meant that everyone treated him well because he might be an avenue for societal improvement.  Now, however, people treat him with disdain.  They scorn him. Why do they scorn him?  They scorn him because they can.  Now that he is inflicted, and his wealth is gone, people have no use for him.  He is a societal castoff.

What this teaches us is that we need to be careful of society.  True friends receive us however we are.  They may challenge us to change, but they receive us.  The greater society, however, only receives us if we have use or value to them.  As soon as our usefulness erodes, so will our connection to them.  Our notoriety will dry up and we will be outcast.  There are many people who go to great lengths to avoid this fate.  I prefer to perceive the reality and simply place no value in vain notoriety that comes from the shallowness of society’s judgment.  What matters is the opinion of those who value me for who I am, not the opinions of those who value me for what I can do for them.

The second perspective that we can learn from this chapter is Job’s opinion of himself.  Understandably, his opinion of himself has fallen.  That’s not how it should be, but it is understandable.  As people turn away from Job, Job can actually understand more about why they turn away than he can see his own worth.  He himself identifies more with those who abandon him than he identifies with what he still offers.  He has already proven his wisdom and faith!  Yet as society turns from him, his own identity ebbs away.

Finally, we can get a sense of Job and his relationship with God.  Job still does not understand God’s position in all of this.  If Job is so righteous, why does God seem to stand so far off and do nothing about it?  Job is lost in his own lack of understanding.

It is important to note, however, that Job does not abandon God.  Job is confused by God, but he does not walk away from God.  While Job may wonder about God’s absence, he does not accuse God and forsake his relationship with God.  This can often be a fine line, but it is an important line.  It shows us that there is a proper way to allow our doubts to find expression without it affection our relationship with God.  This is a very important practice to understand.

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Year 8, Day 123: Job 29

Theological Commentary: Click Here

I don’t particularly like the humanity that I read here in this chapter.  Job begins by saying, “Oh that I wish …”  He then starts to talk about when his life was good.

I get what Job is saying.  He feels the pain of life now and remembers the joy of life in the past.  I understand what Job is saying.  I feel what he is getting at.  Who among us wouldn’t like to like in the times when life is most enjoyable.  What Job is saying in this chapter makes perfect human sense.  I’m not even going to fault Job for this.  We’d all like to live a joyful life instead of a pained life.

Where I find fault with Job is that Job compares God’s love for him with his joy.  Job speaks as though God loved him more when life was good.  Job indicates that God was closer to Job when life was good.

This is an absolutely natural reaction.  All of us feel closer to God when life is good.  But that’s our perception of reality, not reality.  Just because we think we are closer to God, doesn’t mean God is actually closer to us.  Just because our life is easy doesn’t mean that God actually loves us more!  In fact, if we hear the testimony of the insanely popular footsteps poem, the times in our life where life is the most difficult is the time when God is actually carrying us through life.  You don’t get much closer than that!

The truth is that I am just as guilty as Job for thinking this way.  I often equate God’s love for me to things going the way I want them to.  But that’s my foolish human perception, not a true reflection of reality.  God loves me.  He doesn’t love me more when life is good.  He doesn’t love me less when life is bad.  God loves me and walks each day by my side.  The same is true for us all.

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Year 8, Day 122: Job 28

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Job makes a very interesting comparison in this chapter.  He begins by talking about humanity’s quest for valuable things.  We will mine deep into the earth for ore.  We will stop up rivers in the chance to find gold and silver.  We will go deep into caves for gemstones.  We value flint for its ability to make fire.  In fact, Job makes the claim that we are so interested in these precious quantities that we see it all.

Human beings have a natural attention for what we value.  When we see something we value, we notice it.  We will even look over things other people value in order to get to what we value.  As proof of this, how many streams and rivers have we spoiled because we value industry and commerce over drinkable water supplies and natural habitat?

Job then asks from where wisdom comes.  He acknowledges that it is hidden from among the eyes of human beings.  In other words, none of us are inherently particularly wise.  We know gold when we see it.  We even know how to find gold!  But wisdom is hidden from us.

Why is it hidden from us?  Job gives us a really nice answer.  What is wisdom?  The fear of the Lord is wisdom.  Turning away from evil is understanding.  In other words, we recognize wisdom when we turn from our own ways and live as the Lord desires us to live.  Wisdom is letting go of our sinful humanity within.

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Year 8, Day 121: Job 27

Theological Commentary: Click Here

In today’s chapter, we get a mixed bag when it comes to Job and his expression of faith.  At the beginning, Job seems a little accusatory of God.  Has God taken away his right?  If God really to blame for the bitterness of Job’s soul?  Is Job perfect?  Is Job even righteous apart from God?  Job gets on a pretty high horse in these verses.

On the other hand, Job refuses to abandon God.  While he may feel like God has been unfair, Job isn’t looking to leave God.  He is still faithful.  He still wants to be counted by God.

This leads to an interesting perspective the rest of the chapter.  Job stays with God in spite of his feelings of unfairness.  So where is it that the wicked turn? Where is it that the godless turn?

Who hears the cry of the godless?  In what great omnipotent power do the godless hope?  What is the thing in which the godless take delight, and how long does it last?

I know there are many things to which people do turn.  There are many things in which we place our hope and our joy.  As for me, I am glad my hope and my joy is in the Lord.  It may not always lead to the easiest life.  It may not always lead to the simplest of life.  But it certainly does lead to an eternal life.  It leads to a belief and a hope that no person can take away.  It leads to a hope that endures rather than fades.

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