Job

Hi, I have been busy purchasing a house, working many hours at work and of course, deep personal thoughts. I have been studying "Job" for a long time and learned about my own sufferings and learned patience through them.

Job reads like history. It talks about a man named Job. He lived in the land of Uz. It relates details about his family, his life, and his suffering. It communicates to us his friends' interest in his suffering, and the spiritual struggling with which Job dealt. What's interesting is that other biblical writers refer to Job as a real person. Ezekiel refers to Job along with Noah and Daniel (Ezekiel 14:14,20). And James draws upon the example of Job to comfort the suffering, proving the point that God is merciful. He commends the endurance of Job (Jas. 5:11). From the Book of Job, we see that God is in complete control. Satan had neither the power nor the authority to do anything without the permission of God. It was consistent with God's nature and will for him to have allowed those things to happen to Job. The Lord's point to Job, at the end of the book, is that he is the all-powerful Creator. He is the loving Sustainer. And he is the perfect Ruler. He created the Universe, and he knows how to govern it as well.

Through the book of Job, I have learned about Job's example of Faith. God made a point to the devil and to the whole world of people who have ever read that account. And the point is this, that true saving faith is not dependent on positive circumstances. God is making a point with Satan and to make the point He uses Job and the point is to show the strength and the continuity and the unwavering character of true saving faith, true love for God. The person who really loves God is not the person who loves God because of what he gets, but the person who loves God because of who He is.

There is a verse in the Bible that God promises that there won’t be anything so bad happen to me that I am not able to bear it. God does everything--He governs everything. Faith is accepting God's Will. There is confusion between the determined Will of God and a Christian's responsibility as a Christian.

From the Book of Job, we see that God is in complete control. Satan had neither the power nor the authority to do anything without the permission of God. It was consistent with God's nature and will for him to have allowed those things to happen to Job. The point of the story of Job is about God's Sovereign. Not really about Job. People always focus on Job more than God's sovereign. Jesus said clearly about a penny's worth of sparrows compare to us. Matthew 10:29: Are not two sparrows sold for a penny ? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. If God can control with those two sparrows, then He will do the same for His children as well. In reality, the blessings are from God, the Holy Spirit-and using that person as an instrument to do God's will and plan.

God's divine intervention (i.e. trials) goes BOTH WAYS. All circumstances can turn people to God. Scriptures reveals that no trial, no disease or illness, no accident or injury reaches us apart from God's permission. Christians can answer like Joseph to his brothers who sold him into slavery, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” There are some who seem to look on the gloomy side and never able to do respond in faith to life's problems, instead, they grumble about the trials that they forget God's powerful grace.

Remember the story of Joseph in the Old Testament (Genesis 50:20), Joseph told his brothers who sold him into slavery, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” God will take advantage of Satan's evil desires and motives to accomplish His will. The Bible clearly teaches that God knows beforehand what we will need and He will provide beforehand according to His will. God is absolutely powerful, that God is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, that God is immutable, never changes, that God is all wise, perfectly just, holy, righteous. God is ruling all things to work together for our good and His purpose.

The fact of the matter is the visible providence of God has no respect of persons. It doesn't discriminate between believers and unbelievers. Plane crashes, boat sinkings, train accidents, car collisions, heart disease, cancer doesn't discriminate between a sinner and a saint, or between a sinner and a sinner.