PLEASE READ THIS FIRST: Job 8-10
What do you sense the Lord saying to you in this passage?
“If only there were someone to mediate between us, to bring us together.” (Job 9:33)
Bildad sees God’s ways as simple: we sin, God punishes us… period.
Job wants to argue this, but struggles because ]how can we argue with God?’
In this verse he is asking for a mediator with God… not with Bildad.
In the middle of this struggle with God, he cries out for a mediator.
He doesn’t know he’s speaking about Jesus, but he is!
Jesus is this mediator, this one who will bring us together.
Jesus steps in between holy, mighty, sovereign God… and us.
And wonder of wonders, he mediates with mercy, not only justice.
Bildad only sees justice, Job only sees despair; but Jesus reveals compassion.
Life is hard, filled with injustice, uncertainty, confusion, suffering.
But God is not a monster or tyrant ruling our lives with cruel justice.
God sent Jesus as mediator to show us the full extent of God’s love.
When I struggle with God questions (‘why God?’), I look at Jesus.
Jesus shows me what God is ultimately like, and how God is for me, not against me!
PRAYER
Lord, thank you for stepping in to my life, to show me that I need not fear God, but can hope in and trust the God that loves THAT much!
Job is in despair – and he is tormented by his friends who think he is guilty of something that needs confession – his friends are adding to his sufferings: “I still dread all my sufferings, for I know you will not hold me innocent.” Job despairs because he acknowledges that God allowed this to happen to him and he does not know why. He makes this prophetic statement that points to Jesus: “If only there were someone to mediate between us, someone to bring us together, 34 someone to remove God’s rod from me,”. Our lives are like Job’s without Jesus – there would be no hope – we would feel like pawns moving to death without hope. Still Job hopes in God even in his despair. He believes that God would listen if there were a mediator!
But I do have an arbiter – a go between, a mediator whose name is Jesus. He is the answer. And in Him I have life. He is my hope and security, my all in all.
Worldlings prize their gems of beauty,
Cling to gilded toys of dust;
Boast of wealth, and fame, and pleasure;
Only Jesus will I trust.
All for Jesus! All for Jesus!
Only Jesus will I trust.
All for Jesus! All for Jesus!
Only Jesus will I trust.