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

Theological Commentary: Click Here

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

Theological Commentary: Click Here

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

Theological Commentary: Click Here

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

Theological Commentary: Click Here

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

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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

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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

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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

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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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Year 8, Day 120: Job 26

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There are a few chapters in the Bible that entirely focus upon God.  The majority of chapters in the Bible focus on God and our relationship with Him.  Very few chapters – especially outside of the book of Psalms – focus entirely on God and His character.  This is one of those chapters.

Look at what this chapter has to tell us about God.  First of all, God is omnipresent.  Life cannot hide from Him.  Even the dead in Sheol cannot hide from Him.  Nothing escapes His observation.  He is aware in a way that we cannot even comprehend.

This chapter also speaks to God’s omnipotence.  He covers up voids.  He hangs the earth on nothing!  This thought caused me to stop and think for a second.  This is quite literally true.  The earth is suspended in space, supported only by the force of gravity that constantly pulls us towards the sun and thus into our elliptical orbit.  Oh, by the way, the sun is hung on nothing, too.  If you want to explain that our planet stays put because of the gravitational attraction with the sun, what is the response to how the sun is hung?

To continue with God’s omnipotence, Job reminds us that God can cover the whole face of the moon with a cloud.  For many years, I lived in Western Pennsylvania.  Seattle residents might be surprised to find out that no place in America sees less sun per year than Western Pennsylvania.  As a sufferer of Seasonal Affective Disorder, I was keenly aware of how little sun I saw.  One winter I remember going 36 straight days without seeing the sun – all of January and a little December and February!  Imagine the size of the cloud that covered the face of Western Pennsylvania for 36 straight days!  God is bigger than even that cloud!

God stills the seas.  God splits apart the light from the darkness.  God speaks in the thunder and is present in His own silence.  This is the amazing power of God.

This is a chapter that can truly cause us to ponder God and His nature.  We cannot comprehend Him, but we can pay Him homage when we try to do so.  This is the power of this chapter.

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Year 8, Day 119: Job 25

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Bildad speaks.  If I may say so with a snarky tone to my voice, it is blessedly short, too!  I love that this chapter is only a handful of verses.  It can help us realize that pontificating isn’t always necessary, and listening is always more important!

Much of what Bildad says has worth.  God does judge us.  God does have an immeasurable force.  God’s light does shine everywhere.  How can we even come close to comparing to God?  Bildad is wise to recognize our limitations.

That being said, Bildad is shortsighted.  We cannot be righteous on our own merit.  However, because God’s power is limitless, He can make us righteous!  We can stand righteous in His presence because of who He is, not because of who we are.  That’s a very important dynamic to remember.

It is often easy to focus on our humanity.  We can spend too much time seeing the sinfulness around us.  Even in those moments where we do focus on the sinfulness around us, we should be mindful of God’s ability to change us and make us righteous.  We should never lose sight of hope, especially in those moments when we are looking into the depth of human depravity.

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Year 8, Day 118: Job 24

Theological Commentary: Click Here

In this chapter, we get to hear a fairly reasonable complaint from Job.  Ultimately, the complaint puts Job in the wrong.  It puts us in the wrong when we say it, too.  The complaint is understandable.

Job’s complaint is that evil people seem to go unpunished.  The powerful oppress the powerless.  The wealthy find ways to take even more money from the poor.  The people with food hoard it instead of sharing it with the hungry.  The widow goes without a champion.  In all of this, they aren’t held accountable.

This is a human grievance throughout time.  You can go to any culture and hear people speak about this.  You can go to any time period and see this dynamic at work.  It is true in the greatest nations and true in the worst of nations.  It is this dynamic that caused people to create both democracy, capitalism, socialism, and communism.  For the record, this human condition is still present in all of them, too!  We cannot get away from this dynamic within humanity.  Job is correct in recognizing this human dynamic and stating that it is a problem.

That being said, Job takes his argument too far.  Job argues that such a dynamic is allowed to exist by God.  This argument is wrong on two accounts.  First, why is it God’s responsibility to fix our mistakes?  Yes, God does save us and ultimately He does fix our problem with sin.  Just because he does fix it, however, doesn’t mean it was His responsibility!  That’s why we call it grace.  Job is wrong when he lays this problem at God’s feet.

Second, Job is wrong because he lacks an eternal perspective.  God does judge us when we behave according to the manner that Job describes in this chapter.  He doesn’t judge us in the present; He judges us in the future.  There will be an accounting.  There will be a judgment.  That’s why we need God’s grace.  To accuse God of not holding people accountable does nothing except prove our own short-sightedness.  He does hold us accountable; He does it on His own timeline.  Why should God have to do things according to our timeline created by our limited perspective?

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