Job 1:18-22 (22)\u00a0<\/b>\u2013 While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house:\u00a0 19\u00a0And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.\u00a0\u00a0<\/i>20\u00a0Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, 21\u00a0And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the\u00a0Lord\u00a0gave, and the\u00a0Lord\u00a0hath taken away; blessed be the name of the\u00a0Lord.\u00a0\u00a0<\/i>22\u00a0In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.<\/i><\/p>\n
In the book of Job the Lord God tells us the story of a real life man of faith.\u00a0\u00a0He was a good man who strove to live a righteous life before God.\u00a0\u00a0He both loved and feared God and his life was evidence of that.\u00a0\u00a0God allowed this man to be severely tested and he lost everything on earth that was dear to him.\u00a0\u00a0In a single day all his possessions were destroyed or stolen.\u00a0\u00a0All his beloved servants were killed.\u00a0\u00a0Then all his sons and daughters were killed.\u00a0\u00a0The Lord allowed the devil to do all this.\u00a0\u00a0Job\u2019s response was not doubt, or even anger toward God, but instead he gave a powerful expression of faith as he gave honor to the name of the Lord.\u00a0\u00a0A person cannot have such faith unless their faith is truly their great reality.\u00a0\u00a0To have such faith as this one must know beyond doubt or reason, that God is good all the time and that He loves us.\u00a0\u00a0Without that knowledge, we have no sure faith, and we shall not hold up as Job did.<\/p>\n
Then the Lord allowed the devil to strike his health and Job could only sit on the side of the road in pain, scratching his wounds with a piece broken ceramic.\u00a0\u00a0The devil made him have pain beyond the flesh clear down to his bones (Job 2<\/b>).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0His poor traumatized wife, seeing Job\u2019s continued faithfulness, became frustrated and told him to \u201cCurse God and die.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0But Job did not do that, instead he questioned her if we should receive good from the hand of God and then doubt Him when hard times happen? God said that after suffering all that Job had suffered that he did not sin with his words (Job 2:10<\/b>).\u00a0\u00a0Job did not accuse God, but defended God after all that had befallen him.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0How could that possibly be?\u00a0\u00a0A person cannot have such faith unless their faith is truly their great reality.\u00a0\u00a0To have such faith as this one must know beyond doubt or reason, that God is good all the time and that He loves us.\u00a0\u00a0Without that knowledge, we have no sure faith, and we shall not hold up as Job did.<\/p>\n
Family, we all know that good times and hard times come.\u00a0\u00a0Surprises of love come as well as let-downs from loved ones and friends.\u00a0\u00a0People we love die, often, in our estimation, much too soon.\u00a0\u00a0We, and those we love, suffer.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0How are we sustained to not sin against God?\u00a0\u00a0Our only hope is that we have embraced the knowledge of God that He offers to us all through Jesus.\u00a0\u00a02 Peter 1:3<\/b>\u00a0states \u201cHis divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness<\/i>.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Our power over doubt is the true knowledge of God.\u00a0\u00a0God Himself has given us Jesus, His Word and the Holy Spirit to bring us closer to Him and to increasingly know Him.\u00a0\u00a0Jesus Himself was the Revelation of God to the world (Colossians 1:15<\/b>).\u00a0\u00a0It is the desire of God to reveal Himself to us so that we may be blessed in that knowledge and perhaps, if our hearts are not hard, we will love Him with everything that we are and so be blessed.<\/p>\n
It is common in our day to be taught that it is okay to be angry with God.\u00a0\u00a0No, that is not biblical, it is what is taught to people who have so erred to make them feel better, and perhaps so the teacher may feel better about his own error.\u00a0\u00a0It is sin to lack faith in God (Romans 14:23<\/b>).\u00a0\u00a0Doubting God is forgivable through Jesus, but it not what God desires.\u00a0\u00a0God has given us His Son Jesus, He has given us His written Word, and He has given us His tender Holy Spirit to teach us who He is and to keep us in that knowledge.\u00a0\u00a0As we read in\u00a02 Peter 1:3<\/b>\u00a0God has given us all that we need for a godly life and that by giving us knowledge of Him.\u00a0\u00a0The saying is true \u201cKnow God, know peace.\u00a0\u00a0No God, no peace.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0If we know beyond anything we think we know and beyond anything we can think or imagine, if we know who God is, than we too can have the faith of Job.\u00a0\u00a0Did Job hurt, of course he did!\u00a0\u00a0Yet, Job knew God and so he was sustained through all his trials.\u00a0\u00a0Even later, when God questioned him, it was not punishment, but rescuing that God was doing.\u00a0\u00a0That from God\u2019s goodness and love being expressed to Job.<\/p>\n
A person cannot have Job-like faith unless their faith is truly their great reality.\u00a0\u00a0To have such faith as this one must know beyond doubt or reason, that God is good all the time and that He loves us.\u00a0\u00a0Without that knowledge, we have no sure faith, and we shall not hold up as Job did.\u00a0\u00a0So let us press in until we know, beyond anything that would push us toward unbelief, from within or without, that God is always good and that He loves us.\u00a0\u00a0God has always wanted us to know Him and be blessed by that knowledge.\u00a0\u00a0Let us live in it and so let the issues, the flood of love for Him wash through us and keep us.\u00a0\u00a0To know Him is to love Him.\u00a0\u00a0All that truly know Him know this.\u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s keep pressing in till He brings us home and then we will see and fully know how infinitely great and wonderful is our God.\u00a0\u00a0Praise God!\u00a0\u00a0Oh, He is so easy to love!\u00a0\u00a0Praise God!<\/p>\n
Psalm 150:6<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.\u00a0 Praise the Lord!<\/i><\/p>\n
Micah 7:7<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0But as for me, I watch\u00a0in hope\u00a0for the\u00a0Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear\u00a0me.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
Micah 6:8<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0He has shown You, O man, what\u00a0is\u00a0good; And what does the\u00a0Lord\u00a0require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Job 1:18-22 (22)\u00a0\u2013 While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house:\u00a0 19\u00a0And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192],"tags":[1863,1849,94,90,17,10],"class_list":["post-1672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotion","tag-colossians","tag-job","tag-micah","tag-peter","tag-psalm","tag-romans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1672"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1673,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1672\/revisions\/1673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}