PLEASE READ THIS FIRST: Job 22-24
What do you sense the Lord saying to you in this passage?
“If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored.” (Job 22:23)
These words from Eliphaz sound so right: repent, and God will restore you.
We use similar words, assuming that it is because we sinned that we suffer.
Meanwhile, Job doesn’t think he has anything to repent of.
“The upright can establish their innocence before him.” (Job 23:7)
If someone said that today, Christians would rebuke them too.
This book challenges our religious thinking and honours Job’s real struggle.
Not that Job is right, but his heart is sincere.
Job is being honest, and his friends are being religious.
God prefers honesty and humility over religion and piety.
It is not by trying to stop sinning that we get right with God.
It is by coming as we are – in all our flaws and weaknesses.
Jesus honoured sinful tax collectors over righteous Pharisees.
Does the church do the same, or does it favor the ‘religious’?
As a Jesus follower, Jesus wants me to be real, not religious.
PRAYER
Lord, forgive me for being like Eliphaz and his friends, judging ‘sinners’ with my religious views. Humble me and remind me to be honest and real with you too.
‘He knows the way I take.
My foot held fast to his steps.
I have kept His way and have not turned aside.’
Job was a man of integrity but his friends thought his ‘troubles’ were because of daily living. Repent. But Job knows that His eyes are upon his way. In his struggle he knows that His eyes are upon him and his way. Job continued to stand upon the Rock of his salvation and so must I.
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus Christ, my righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.
2
When darkness veils His lovely face,
I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.
3
His oath, His covenant, His blood,
Support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.
4
When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh, may I then in Him be found;
In Him, my righteousness, alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.