My observations from the Book of Job-

  Section 3,

1-16-14

 

 I don’t believe many of us could imagine how Job must have felt when he heard the news from the three messengers.

 

 Surely it would be too much to even comprehend, especially coming one on the heels of the other.

 

But I wonder if in the back of his mind or in his heart, wherever it is our family dwells, he remained whole and very aware, with each word of loss, of a sense of relief.

 

Perhaps a physical sigh escaped after each message because he still had his family.

 

   And yet as he tried to comprehend the loss of his wealth and all means of regaining it,  a movement caught his eye and with a sinking heart he saw the fourth messenger.  This man approached with a bearing unlike the others and as their eyes met I am sure the heart of Job stopped and the world crashed for him with that sight....and he knew. 

Yes, I think he knew.

 

 And I can write no more on that because it is beyond my understanding.

When the burdened man spoke, did his words fall as words through a fire to a broken heap of humanity crumpled on the dusty ground?

 

 It may be, for we read in verse 20 that “Then Job arose…“

How long did Job remain on the ground in the broken posture of speechless agony before he arose and prepared himself to return there

in a posture of worship?

I have sat here with tears for a while now,  thinking and realizing how small and petty I am prone to be.

 A song that my husband Wayne sang many, many years ago has come to my mind.

I am including the link here and I really recommend that you take the time to let it speak to you as it has to me just now.
http://soundcloud.com/wd-tony/tall-on-my-knees


That will be the end of todays' Blog for I need to spend some alone time with Jesus and I can no longer see through these tears.


Love in Christ,

Charlene

Hi friends, You might want to scroll down to the Red text to a related Simey Story if you find my observations from Job a little tedious. 
 


 Study of Job Section 2--------------------------------------------1-14-14 and 1-15-14
Dear fellow students of the Word,
Hi,
I was thinking that unless you know that I totally believe this scripture from II Timothy, you may find my interest and fascination with Gods' Word a bit off the wall.  Actually you may find it so anyway.  But I am OK with that.

This is the basis of all I believe.

II Tim.3:15-17

  "…15and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work..."


 

Continuing on with the first chapter of Job....

     I find myself not able to just quickly read through this. I think because here we have a picture of God Almighty in conversation with Satan.

    Although I struggled to finish the book ‘The Shack’ by William P. Young,  and cannot imagine Jehovah in so small a form as depicted there, the imagery has somehow enabled me to imagine the following scene more comprehensibly than I might have otherwise.

I try to read this thoughtfully as though I had not heard it before....

Job 1:6-11

      6Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, 
and Satan also came among them.

 7The LORD said to Satan,

“From where do you come?”

 Then Satan answered the LORD and said,

 “From roaming about on the earth and walking around on it.”

 8The LORD said to Satan,

“Have you considered My servant Job?

For there is no one like him on the earth,

a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.

” 9Then Satan answered the LORD,

 “Does Job fear God for nothing?

 10“Have You not made a hedge about him and his house and all that he has, on every side?

You have blessed the work of his hands,

and his possessions have increased in the land.

11“But put forth Your hand now and touch all that he has;

 he will surely curse You to Your face.”

12Then the LORD said to Satan,

 “Behold, all that he has is in your power, only do not put forth your hand on him.”

So Satan departed from the presence of the LORD.

This is an amazing moment in the Universe, that encompasses all time, and all people and answers in a few sentences several of the questions we ponder as we search for our own understanding of doctrines.

I don’t want to be sacrilegious or in any way take from the Glory of God by my words, but I am imagining that God set the scene here, using the ego and pride of Satan to trick him into admitting several things for all creation to hear, which Satan might not have wanted us to know.

Maybe God called a press conference. He, Our God, The creator, He who So Loved the world…could do that...

 I am going to take some liberties here and present my musings of what this might have looked like.

       Were these ‘sons’ good?
       I assume they were. In other translations they are referred to as angels.
       Perhaps when presenting themselves they spoke to God of their frustrations in watching over creation and mentioned that it seemed apparent to them that people on earth did not know about the plan of Satan to hurt God by destroying the bond between God and man. 

       Of course God knew this, but to remind all of heaven of His Omnipotence, he winked at them and said   "Fear not, watch this!"
       Then leaning over the podium he starts the conversation with Satan.
        And Satan, his ego stoked by the attention, lets escape from his own mouth statements that declare the greatness, love, protection, and power, that God holds over wee Man, and the constraining power God holds over Satan himself.
       This amazes me.
        I never realized this before.  

And I used to think that the book of Job was about the patience of Job.!

I imagine the sons of God are sitting there smiling….the Word is getting out, the cameras are rolling and here we have it. I never realized the wealth of information that these few verses hold...
What was revealed in this conversation?

1. Satan is real
2. He is cunning as we are warned, but not too cunning for God
3. He is walking around among us
4. He is considering us….and not for good….He is trying to get us to curse God. See vs.11
5. He understands our financial standing,
6. He knows our family circumstances
7. He understands our influence in society
8. He knows about the hedge…ahhhh the hedge. Had we heard of that before? Hmmm

OK, what else?

(I am thinking God gave the sons a big thumbs up about now.)

We also learn from this interview that

1. God knew about Job
2. Knew his commitment
3. His financial standing,
4. His family circumstances
5. We learn what it is that impressed God. That is amazing too. (we are not talking about salvation here, we’re talking about what God thought of what Job thought of God.) That’s how I see it.
6. We hear  that being perfect and upright impresses God,
7. that fearing God and turning away from evil impresses God. ( Perhaps that is the meaning of ‘fear God’, acknowledging that He is everything that is good and loving, and  in response choosing good over all that isn’t good.) More about that later….
8. We learn that God blesses…puts His blessing on a person, their finances, all that they put their hand to
9. We learn about the hedge…. when I hear that word and think of that concept, picturing the reality of it in my mind, I am inclined to sit back and smile. I first heard of the Hedge when I was in Bible School at Fairwood. I am getting off track again….
10. We see that Satan is not in ultimate control at all.

Truthfully, there are issues that I don’t understand still, but I am so glad to be reminded again today, as I sat with His Word, of these realities.

And in my heart I am reminded that it is very naïve to blame God when bad things happen.

I wonder how far across the globe Satan had walked before he smacked his forehead in realization that once again he had been outplayed.

Did the sons of God shout for Joy?

Did God chuckle?

　
There is a little family story, generated by our Simon. 
Yes, it’s Simey again!

He was six, we were sitting outside having a snack at the table after school. Of course we were using cloth napkins, and yes, it is important that you know that.

I was wanting a little order from the bickering between the three of them and announced that it was time to pray. All the details are not so clear to me anymore, but for sure he chided me for “always talking about ‘God and stuff“. And basically asked me for my reasons and authority for doing so!

I was a bit amused for that was pretty much out of character for Simon, so I supposed something was going on in his heart.

Well anyway, I told him I “always talked about God (and ‘stuff’)” because the Devil was always trying to make us not think about God (and ‘stuff’)

“Well, what does the Devil do?” he asked

I told him briefly what I knew about that based on this passage and II Peter 5:8. I used the term ‘walking around’ in my description…that I remember clearly because Simey screwed up his face and looking over his shoulder he exclaimed “well he’s walking around here ‘cause he just walked by me!”

I have to tell you it was difficult to keep objective at this point, I may have even looked around too.
 Anyway, I feigned deafness just so I could hear it again and sure enough it was repeated verbatim. 
Holding myself together on the outside, I asked the boy why he thought that the devil had walked by him.
 He replied, “because I was just gonna put something dirty from my nose on the napkin…so he must have told me to do that…but I didn’t!”

Now do you suppose it was about the time I suggested prayer that he changed his little boy heart about defiling my table napkin? I like to think so…..

Well, I didn’t get too far in Job again tonight but that’s it for today.

Walk confidently in that which you Do Know: That Jesus Christ, in another great moment in time, laid down His life in response to the Great love of God for Humanity, he died there, but came alive, having paid forever every debt we had to the Law of Sin and death. He sits at the right hand of our Father in Heaven, He intercedes for us to the Father. He left behind a gift, the powerful Spirit of God to dwell in us and lead us and enable us to hear and follow and Live and be....complete, perfect, upright....

Well, those are a few of the things…

Sitting back smiling…

Charlene

This year, it is my goal to come into His Word in quietness and meekness, as a child listening as I did the first time I heard the story of say, when my brother fell out of the hay mow and missed the horns of the cows, or when I watched a calf being born or discovered that there is a blood/brain barrier;  tiny little pumps that allow some things in to the brain, but close other substances off..

I want to sit at His feet. I want to sit by the lake and listen to the Words of Jesus. I want to experience how the Holy Spirit applies Gods’ Word to me, so that my life, like Jobs’, will be exemplary.
 

 

 

American Standard Version Job 1:1

There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and turned away from evil.

As I read the Bible this year, there are some topics that I want to grow in understanding of..

The first verse in the book of Job touches on five of those issues in the first five verses.

1. What does it mean to be perfect
2. What does it mean to be upright. And are those two different.
3. What does it mean to fear God?
4. What exactly is evil now…today
5. How to pray, what prayer is, how we should pray, when the answer is NO, etc..

      Some of my friends and I have finally admitted to each other that we have these questions and many more.  It was very freeing to realize that these questions that we hid with shame, are common, and perhaps essential to revisit occasionally in our lives, much as our offspring do as they come ’of age’ and we label them rebellious.

      Of course we now Know that we know, and have lived and seen Gods’ personal reality and His involvement in our lives, but the nature of change around us, the Super Grace theories, the ridicule and rejection of everything that speaks of authority and absolutes, even in the Church, sometimes leaves our heads spinning and sometimes our hearts wondering.*

 

      I was excited to read this first verse about this man,  because I am thinking that if God himself used these very words to draw a picture of Job for us to take an example from,… “a perfect and an upright man, one that fears God, and turns away from evil,” then Jobs’ life will be very helpful to us as an example as we study it.

It is apparent that Job was not just talking about being perfect, upright, fearing God and shunning evil…..he had actually been doing it.  God could see too...imagine that! 

American Standard Version Job 1:8
And Jehovah said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job? for there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and turneth away from evil.

 

 

Perfect

and an

upright

man

one that

fears God

and

turns away from evil.

 

 

And here is the beginning of a search for application of that state to our lives.

You where you are, in the ministry you are in, with the personality and strengths and giftings that are yours;  and I where I am, in the ministry I have, with the personality, strengths and giftings….and weaknesses that are mine.

And this is where we humble ourselves and pray for His Word to be made alive in us.

There are so many devotionals, so many words of instruction, suggestions, exhortations, (and here I write even more) that we can easily depend on the Word God gave to someone else, as good as that was for them, to fit us.

I would love to generate comments and discussion after this posting; that would appeal to my ego frankly, but I truly prefer that you are encouraged, and maybe even exhorted to pick up your Bible, and after sitting quietly in His presence, ask the Holy Spirit to make the Word of God alive to you…Alive, to YOU.

This would mean then, that you might find an example to follow in a persons life, you might be encouraged to get outside by reading Davids’ words:

 

. The heavens are telling of the glory of God;

 

And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.

2Day to day pours forth speech,

 

And night to night reveals knowledge.

Ps.19:2

And you will say to yourself…”It is?, well then, I am just gonna go outside and look and listen…”

And your life is renewed because the Holy Spirit made the word of God Alive…to You.

Some of you might be excited to look up the historical time frame of the events in Jobs’ life. You might suddenly understand a different thing about the personality of God. Or the personality of Job.

 

For instance…and totally unspiritual and unsanctified, is my amusement at the art of sarcasm, (which art I have perfected on my dear husband,) that Job employs on his ‘encouragers.’ I am working on destroying my accomplishments in the sarcasm department though, because other scripture came alive to me, and I heard the pleas of my beloved hubby finally.

So there are many ways the Word can come alive to us....

As I go on...I do get sidetracked, I am looking up information on the meaning of these words and descriptive phrases, I am finding that each one is a complete study in itself.

I will be continuing that search as we go on with this study, but the one that I think surprises and relieves us the most is the intended meaning of the word

 

PERFECT:

complete,

entire,

not wanting in any respect

I have known this for some time, this meaning, and when I first became aware, I was so ingrained by ages of misinformation, that I actually thought my friend had gone off the deep end into apostasy. So, I did a little research in an attempt to save his soul, and was surprised by joy to discover that completeness, lack of want, were all things that the life of Jesus in me provides.

 

Rom. 8:11

American Standard Version But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

　

Col 2:8-9
American Standard Version Take heed lest there shall be any one that maketh spoil of you through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ: for in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,

Col. 1:27
American Standard Version
to whom God was pleased to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

 

Is not fullness and completeness the same?

I read in a commentary…I myself being no scholar…that…the area in which Job lived was not anything like the Bible Belt to say the least. It would not have been easy for Job to practice his faith there. I have used the reckoning myself that it would be easier to live ‘right’ if my circumstances were different.

The statement that spoke to me was…..

”…and though it might be distressing and afflicting to the good man to live in such a country, as it was to Lot to live in Sodom, yet it was an honor to him, or rather it was to the glory of the grace of God that he was religious here,…

”Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

 I would substitute the word Christian,…or even more descriptive of our ultimate goal…Christlike for the word religious.

 

There is so much more to these subjects, but I sat down to do this study alone, then decided to share, and now, 6 hours later…I need to close and finish up. But first I just wanted to identify number 5 a little more completely.

Talking about prayer…faith…communion:

American Standard Version Job 1:5 And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, (his seven sons and 3 daughters) that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt-offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and renounced God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.

 

 

Job apparently, even during prosperous, busy, productive days, took his parental fears and concerns and placed them on the alter. They were burnt there. Gone…given to God.

I am pretty sure that he stoutly presented, and stoutly believed that as he came to God with this physical offering for the possible sins of his family, that his God looked down on his children with renewed favor. Because they were now clean…by the shedding of that blood. Because Daddy Job believed God.

How much more…..

…when we anguish now, in 2014 AD, because our offering is the real, spilled blood of sinless Jesus Christ, perhaps we would do well to stoutly bring that offering to God, sometime during our day, and stoutly walk away.

This would be a working relationship with God. We, doing what we can (handing our concerns to Him)….Him doing the rest.(saving, changing, renewing, drawing, comforting…etc.)

　Thanks God for including the Book of Job in our Bible...

I was going to look into these attributes of Job that were of so much value that all heaven and earth became involved in their proving.

　
Let’s try tomorrow... 

Say goodnight Charlene

Nite..