A lesson to learn from Job

When you begin reading the book of Job, you realize that he was fairly wealthy for the time that he lived in. According to some estimates, Job is the oldest book in the Bible, so his story is almost five thousand years old. In chapter 1 it tells of his wealth and his character:

Job’s Character and Wealth
(James 5:7-12)

1There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. And this man was blameless and upright, fearing God and shunning evil. 2He had seven sons and three daughters, 3and he owned 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and a very large number of servants. Job was the greatest man of all the people of the East.

4Job’s sons would take turns holding feasts in their homes, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them.

5And when the days of feasting were over, Job would send for his children to purify them, rising early in the morning to offer burnt offerings for all of them. For Job thought, “Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” This was Job’s regular practice.

For the place and time in which he lived, he was very wealthy. But when God brought Job to the attention of Satan, God allowed him to take all of his wealth away at first. Because Satan said that God had a hedge of protection around Job, so even when all of his wealth and his children were taken from him Job still didn’t blame God for it. Here is exactly what Job said when the news of his wealth and his children being taken from him: 21 And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.

He was still praising the Lord for his wealth and for the taking away of his wealth and his children. We need to learn a lesson from this especially during this day and time. Our breath and our health are given to us by God each hour of every day. He could stop our heart at any time because He is God, but if you are reading this He hasn’t done so yet. God loves you and every other person on Earth and He gives and takes or allows things to be taken for a reason. Sometimes it may be that He has something better planned for you, and sometimes it may be to teach you something.

When we seek to live our lives to honor Him and we want things which may not honor or bring glory to God then we shouldn’t be surprised when He answers our prayers with a “no” or by allowing something to be taken away from us. Life works that way sometimes and if you belong to Jesus and He belongs to you then your blessings are given by His command. Sometimes this also applies to things which are taken from you or that you aren’t allowed to have. We don’t know why until something else comes to take its place. Keep your faith in God and praise Him for the good things and the not so good things as well.

Do you imagine God in your image?

There is a quip or a saying which is attributed to Voltaire and it may hold true in our culture today. It goes like this: “God created man in His own image, and man has been trying to repay the favor ever since.” Since we must do this at least some in our lives, I wonder how God feels about the exchange? When we make God in our image or as much like us as possible it tends to degrade Him into a brat and a whiner like we are. Think about all of the complaints which the Israelites lobbied against Moses and God when they were in the wilderness. It is no wonder that God almost wiped them out and wanted to start over with Moses. But Moses pleaded with God on their behalf and they were spared, at least the majority of the group was. Some were killed or buried when the ground swallowed them after the golden calf incident.

For heaven’s sake, they created an idol to be their “god” less than a week after God gained their freedom for them after 430 years with all of the plagues and miracles which He wrought to get Pharaoh to let them leave. He purified the waters to give them to drink, He brought water from a rock in the desert twice to take care of their thirst and their livestock. When they asked for meat instead of manna, He blew in quail in such numbers that they had more than enough to eat.

I am very thankful that God is not like us in any way. Oh, He is kind and compassionate and He has far more patience than any human could possibly have. But, if God were like we imagine Him to be I don’t think the world and the rule of mankind would’ve lasted as long as it has. God loves each of us far more than we can understand or imagine and He has done it since before our ancestors were born, all the way back to the beginning of His Creation and before that even.

Using your imagination to think up a “supreme being” that you can live with and worship is a very dangerous thing to do. For one, you are a practical idol worshiper when you do that. Because “your god” fits your ideas and your way of thinking just so you can feel comfortable when you pray and worship him. Your imaginary god is NOT the God of the Bible nor is he the God of Creation. Your god is someone that you created in your own mind. Your god will not get you into Heaven but he will pave a very slippery slope into hell just fine.

The second of the ten commandments says: “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below”. This is not a suggestion, it is a commandment from Almighty God. I pray that all of you who read this will seek out the God of the Bible and His Son, Jesus for your salvation. There are no second chances after death so you had better make up your mind while you can.

Happy New Year!

This year is one which will see a lot of things happen. Many of those will be ignored or not even reported in the news media but they will be important nonetheless. God is working and will be working behind the scenes while we go about our lives.

You may be wondering why I started this year in this way. The reason is that God has spoken to me and He has given me this mission. Just as all the previous years when I began this endeavor. This is my witness to all who might read this. Not bragging or trying to bring attention to myself but to get your attention focused on the Savior, Jesus Christ. He is the only way to gain entrance into heaven. There is no other way except by believing in Him and giving your heart to Him as your Savior and Lord.

Will we see the works of God this year? Some will see them and some will just reject them as natural phenomena in the world. Do not mock God’s working in this world because one day every knee will bow before Him and declare that He is Lord.

God loves each of us even though He doesn’t agree with the way many of us live. Humble yourself before Him and ask for His forgiveness of your foolish behavior. Seek to know Him as your Savior and follow hard on His steps until the day when He calls us home. For some that may be sooner than they know, but all will come to know Him as Lord and King one day. I pray that this year will be filled with miracles which can’t be explained away except by the power of God. Seek Him while there is time and learn of His goodness and mercy. Give your heart to Him because He loved you before the foundation of the world and He sent Jesus to pay for our sins because of that love.

In Jesus’ name I pray that all of you will come to know Him as your Savior this year.

When I consider…

All of the wonderful things which God has provided for us, which are given to us by God. We have no control over our health, for the most part, but He gives us our portion anyway. We do not have any control over how many days or weeks or years that we will live, but God does and He gives them to us anyway. Even when we are disobedient to His calling in our lives, He is faithful to give us the necessary things to get through each day. Even when we don’t acknowledge Him in our life, especially for the blessings which we have each day like the air that we breathe and the energy that we have to move from one place to another, God is still faithful.

Consider how we show our faithfulness. Some of us don’t go to church but we are blessed by God anyway. Some of us don’t honor the Sabbath by praising Him for our life through Christ, but God is still blessing us each day. Some days we wake up with more pains and other afflictions which hinder our lives and we blame Him for those days, but God is faithful to bless us with His healing in our lives anyway. When we blame Him or shout our frustration to Him in our prayer time, He hears it and He still gives us blessings which we may not notice.

Would you consider being in a relationship with someone who treated you in the same way that we treat God? I imagine that we would write that person off and never speak to them again, but God isn’t like that. He is not as we are. He is patient and kind toward us even when we aren’t. He gives us the air to breathe and the food which we put on the table. He gives us the ability to go out and work so that we can have food for our families. Everything that you have comes from His hand not yours. We should be grateful and thankful for each drink that we take and for every morsel of food that we eat not just on Thanksgiving but every hour of every day.

God is always faithful to His promises toward us so why aren’t we faithful to Him in our lives? When things are going wrong such as a diagnosis that says we don’t have long to live most of us run to His throne begging to be healed and spared from this. Then when the illness is healed we thank the doctor and the hospital staff and we go about our business as if nothing happened. We forget that it was God working through those people in our lives in order to bring our healing to fruition. But when the disease, like cancer, comes back with a vengeance we blame God for it rather than giving Him praise for His power to heal.

Be mindful of your relationship with God because He is always caring for you when you don’t even know it. Make it a habit to read His word and claim His promises each and every day so when those days which plague all men come upon us you can praise Him anyway, thank Him anyway and get through them anyway because He never leaves you nor forsakes you. Even when we are fickle in our faith toward Him, He is not. Praise the Lord for His mercies endure forever.

Who is Jesus to you?

Is He the child in the manger wrapped in swaddling cloths? Is the He the Living Word of God? Is He God Who came down to us in order to bring salvation and the forgiveness of sins? Is He the King of Kings and Lord of Lords? I could go on and on with the titles which He came to be on this Earth but my point is this: if Jesus is not the King of your life…then who is? If you haven’t given your heart to Him and asked Him to come into your life and make you whole and complete, then what or who is in that place?

Jesus is the real reason for the season whether we like it or believe it or not. There are many in the world today who don’t believe the Bible is the Word of God. They think it is just a book and nothing more but it is SO MUCH MORE. The main reason that I say this is because if one part of it is not true then the whole text of the Bible isn’t true. God gave the words of His Book to those who wrote it down so that all of us who have access to it can learn from it and be saved from the consequences of our sin. Which sin are we talking about? The only one which matters to God: belief in Jesus as your Savior. If you don’t believe that and ask Him to come into your heart and your whole life and allow Him to change you then you just wasted your time.

Without Jesus, without the Christ in your life and your heart all you have is “book knowledge”? Even if you have been attending church for your entire life and you’ve read the Bible in Sunday school and during the sermons for fifty or sixty years but you haven’t asked Jesus to come into your heart and save you then all you have is knowledge of Him without the experience of His power in your life.

All of us need to realize that when we have been adopted as sons and daughters when we accept Jesus as our Savior. We are not outside the family! We are adopted and accepted as sons and daughter of God if you have truly accepted Him as our Savior. God’s love is extended to each of us just like His Son, Jesus. If you are seeking your Savior, trying to fill that space that has always been empty, then Jesus Christ is the One you’ve been seeking.

What is the best gift you’ve been given?

If you are a Christian and believe in Jesus as your Savior then your greatest gift is Jesus and the atonement which He purchased with His blood. It is a priceless gift and one which cannot be duplicated nor returned. This gift is found in the heart of every Christian who has truly given their life and their soul to Jesus and asked His forgiveness for not doing so sooner!

God knows your heart and He knows exactly when or even if you will turn to Him for your salvation. Some of us take a bit longer to learn that we need Him far more than He needs us. He is our Creator but He wants to be your friend and your guide in this life so you can move to the next life with Him. When you feel His call on your heart, please don’t turn away like many people are doing these days.

This gift of salvation doesn’t cost you anything unless you just can’t leave your drinking buddies or those that you hang out with every day. If that is more important to you than your eternity then stay with them. But if you know that this life doesn’t go on but for a few years and that those “friends” won’t be with you for your entire life then I advise you to seek out the Son of God, Jesus the Christ. He can fill that space which has felt empty for so long. That space which you can’t seem to find the exact fit for it and it keeps feeling as if it stays hollow regardless of what you try or who you may try it with. Jesus is the piece which fills in that space and makes you whole and complete.

Is it pity or praise?

Many people in the church look at their lives and say “woe is me”. They are having a pity party and they want more people to join them. Their actions and how they live show that they don’t believe that God has always taken care of their needs, even though He has. They look at their old car or their drafty old house and think that God doesn’t love them because they don’t have the nice things that other people have.

God doesn’t have to reward you for pitying yourself and your life and He won’t. God doesn’t have to give you wealth and prosperity because He doesn’t have to do anything. There are no magic words or phrases which will grab God by His money-belt and make Him respond to your request…because God doesn’t respond to us in that way at all! Living in a pity party doesn’t help your situation at all, in fact it may make it worse.

Remember this and commit it to your memory: God is NOT a genie! He is God and the Creator of everything in the universe. He has trillions of tons of gold and silver in the cosmos and He doesn’t need your money. Our pitiful trinkets of gold and silver are used for paving streets in Heaven, especially the gold, so our money doesn’t truly mean much to God. Our intentions and our willingness to follow Him touch God far more than any amount of gold or silver. Because God knows the heart and soul of all men and He can discern exactly what your intent is.

He knows if you are giving your tithes with a cheerful heart or if you are putting it in the offering plate wanting change back for your twenty dollar bill. So why would He give us money and riches as His blessing for us when we are going to spend it on “stuff” which doesn’t edify the church or bring glory to Him? Truly, God loves each of us but He will not reward us with wealth unless He can see that your heart is in sync with His. I’m not saying that He will give you wealth if you do have your heart in sync with Him but He is more likely to reward you in some way if you are walking along the same pathway with Him.

Your reward may be a long life to tell others about His goodness and His mercy. It may be a life filled with many blessings which many of us don’t recognize as being given to us by God. The miracles of God and His blessings come our way because of His love for us and our willingness to be useful to His Kingdom. Sometimes they are tangible but sometimes those rewards and blessings are laid up for us in Heaven not here on Earth where people can see them.

Live a life of praise toward God and give Him thanks for your life today. Walk with Him and seek His wisdom in your walk so that you might pass some on to someone else. Be attentive to the Holy Spirit and His voice by reading God’s Word and praying about all of those promises that you have seen fulfilled by Him in its pages. Thank Him for your life and your family and the health that you are enjoying, even if you get up with a pain in your neck or your back. Thank Him for giving you the strength to get out of bed anyway. Thank God for allowing you to be saved by the power and the majesty of Jesus and His atonement for you on the cross. God loves you and He has a purpose for you so seek Him out and ask Him what it is and how can you be closer to Him so you can fulfill His purpose while you are here.

The baby in the manger…

The angels told of a child born in Bethlehem, the city of David, Who was the Savior of all the world. They even made sure that they told the shepherds about His birth first. So why don’t we follow Him and try our best to walk in the way that He did so many years ago? Why are there many in the world today who claim that He didn’t exist or that He wasn’t Who He said He was?

Those who claim that He wasn’t the Savior or the Messiah are the ones in our world today who want all kinds of social programs and an easy life. This is not the way which Jesus taught His disciples. He told them that the world would reject their teaching about Him and that they would have troubles and trials in the world. Particularly when they were doing what He had told them to do. Why does our walk with Him bring trouble into our lives? Because Satan doesn’t like it when we are doing God’s will and working for Him in this life.

God loves each of us and we can choose to follow Him and do His will or not but the end of the story is this: what did you do when you felt His touch in your life? Did you answer His touch and give up your old ways and follow Him and learn what His will is or did you tell Him to go to hell and leave you alone?

Unfortunately, many people do exactly what the second part of that question point out. The problem with that answer to God is that you may end up in the lake of fire with Satan…for eternity. No party, no 70 virgins, no having fun with the devil in hell because he doesn’t rule there, God is still in charge regardless.

Make sure of your destination after this life BEFORE this life is over because there are no second chances once you have taken your last breath here.

Father, I am sorry.

There are days when I don’t live spiritually close to my Savior. There are days when I don’t feel His closeness and His love for me. Why do these days keep coming at me during this time of year? This attack comes from our adversary. The adversary which stirred up those who were jealous of Jesus and His teachings. Satan is his name and his followers go out and try to tear down our faith and wear us down to the point of not being effective in our witness and our life of being a Christian. Do many of you have days like this? I imagine there are more people who have days of feeling defeated and useless to God than there are those who are serving Him joyfully and with gladness in their spirit. Why?

Because Satan knows if he can cause more Christians to either doubt their salvation or feel useless in their walk with Jesus then their witness will be dimmed to the point of being non-existent. When that happens they can’t reflect God’s love toward others and nobody will see Jesus in anything that they do. So how can we live in our calling and in our spiritual walk with Jesus day by day?

We have to get up that day and determine that we will walk with Jesus today. Then do it again tomorrow and the next day and the next day until it becomes as natural to us as breathing. The problem will return though. Because when Satan sees you walking in the Spirit and with Jesus every day his attacks on you will increase because you are a problem to him. We need to pray every morning that Jesus would put a hedge around us with angels guarding our moves every day so the enemy can’t sabotage what your life and your witness can accomplish.

God loves each person and especially those whom He has called into His service. Sometimes we don’t feel that we are worthy of His call, like Moses, but He is our Creator and He will give each of us the knowledge and ability to accomplish those tasks which He has given each of us to do. God doesn’t call those who have degrees and lots of letters behind their name although He does use them at times. God qualifies those who can do that which He requires them to do after He calls them. Give your life to Him and see what He can qualify you to do in His Kingdom.

What are you worth?

In our economy of excess people are judged to be wealthy when they have lots of land or cattle and/or a thriving business. Many are looked on as well off when they don’t have any bills or their debts are paid on time. But…this is the world’s way of looking at wealth. While these may give you freedom and peace of mind and it certainly would in this life, what kind of treasure (wealth) have you laid up in Heaven for eternity?

Your “net worth” in this life is only important to those in your family, as long as you have your priorities in the right order. But if you are chasing wealth on Earth to the exclusion of your life with your family, what are you really doing? In reality you are throwing away much of your wealth while chasing after stuff which is temporary and only worth something here and now.

While it is true that income or wealth does help us in this life with our bills and our needs, many look at it as if it solves far more than it really does. Truly, it tends to bring more “friends” into our life than we would normally have. But just as the prodigal son found out, when the money is gone so are those “friends”. Life is full of trials and tribulations both good and bad but when your wealth is anchored in Jesus and in His Kingdom this life and its trouble cannot take your joy from you. Many things could be taken from you such as your car or your job but the rewards of your life of service to God cannot be taken from you.

He is your strength and your shield. He is your buckler and your sword. He provides all that you need to serve Him until that day that you are called home to your eternal reward in His house. Seek Him and pray about your own life and the lives of those closest to you so when that day comes which comes to us all at the end, He will welcome you home to a place that cannot be taken from you.