Read Job 31:24-34. What else can we learn about Job?
No wonder the Lord said what He did about the life and character of Job. This is a man who clearly lived out his faith, a man whose works revealed the reality of his relationship with God. This, of course, made his complaint all the more bitter: Why was this happening to me? And, of course, it made the arguments of his friends as vain and hollow as they were.
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But there’s a deeper and more important message that we can take from the reality of Job’s faithful and obedient life. Notice how closely the life he lived in the past was tied to how he responded to the tragedies that befell him later. It was not by chance, or luck, or sheer willpower that Job refused to “ ‘curse God, and die’ ” (Job 2:9) . No, it was because all those years of faithfulness and obedience to God gave him the faith and character that enabled him to trust in the Lord, regardless of what happened to him.
Read Matthew 7:22-27. What is found in these verses that reveals the reason Job stayed faithful?
The key to Job’s major victory here was found in all the “smaller” victories he had before (see also Luke 16:10) . It was his faithful adherence to right, without being willing to compromise, that made Job what he was. What we see in Job is an example of what the book of James says about the role of works in a life of faith: “Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect?” (James 2:22, NKJV) . What an important principle of the Christian life is revealed in this text. In the story of Job we see this principle played out in a powerful way. Job was made of the same flesh and bone as all of us; yet, through the grace of God and his own diligent effort he lived a life of faithful obedience to God.
| What choices do you need to make in order to live as faithfully as did Job? |
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