Three Generations of Believers Sharing Lessons and Applications from Job's Life
Lessons and Applications From 3 Generations of Believers
When Our World Falls Apart - Job 1 and 2 - How do we react and respond to the loss of material blessings, health, death of loved ones? Job was "blameless...upright...feared God...and shunned evil. He was the greatest of all the people of the East in material possessions and in family blessing, with 7 sons and 3 daughters." Yet...'when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, Satan also came among them and responded to God's question, "From where do you come?" with "From going to and fro on the earth and from walking back and forth on it."' God asked him to consider Job and what a godly man he was. Satan said it was of little surprise considering how richly God had blessed Job and protected him, that if all that were taken away, Job would curse God to His face. "The LORD allowed"...Satan power over Job in all areas except for Job's person. Satan arranged for all servants and children of Job to be killed, and all his livestock and children's homes to be destroyed. When told this by messengers, 'Job arose...tore his robe...shaved his head...fell to the ground...(and get this)...worshipped. "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD."' Satan appears again before God, and God reminds Satan that Job only honored God, never cursed Him. Satan accuses God again, saying that was only because God had spared Job's body. "God allows"...Satan to attack the body of Job but not kill him. Boils cover Job from head to toe, and his wife says Job should curse God and die. Job's response, '"Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?" In all this Job did not sin with his lips.' Then his 3 friends came to commiserate with him and comfort him.
Lessons From 3 Generations of Believers:
From the Octogenarian: 1) Everything that happens to us comes from or through the hands of God, yet He sustains us through it all. 2) He never leaves us or forsakes us. 3) Trust God through all circumstances. "Through it all I have learned to trust in Jesus, just to trust in Him." 4)These lessons, like Job's, like many hymns have sustained me through the difficulties of life.
From the Twenty-Something: 1) There will always be evil people trying to tear down and destroy others - especially Christians, especially people who are successful. Jealousy and envy are always with us. They may even succeed from an earthly perspective but not in the ultimate view of our eternal life, as long as we don't turn away from God. 2) Sometimes God puts these people and situations in our lives to test our faith. The application of this to my life is the importance of putting things into perspective - keeping my focus on God, continuing in the earthly pursuits that God has given me the opportunity to achieve, despite - or because of - what others may do to hinder or destroy me.
From the Sixty-Something: 1) Nothing happens to us that has not been filtered through the hands of God. This is not always comforting, especially when our whole world is destroyed in a short period of time by the evil machinations of someone harming us without reason or cause. Ephesians 6:12 tells us "our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." Job is an account of this struggle against spiritual forces - something we tend to forget, minimize or discount in our physical world today. 2) Job and Joseph stand out in the Bible as godly men who stay devoted to God regardless of / in spite of outward circumstances manipulated by evil people against them. In the end, God brought great blessing out of the horrible destruction. Do I stay faithful to God when my blessings are removed, when evil seems to triumph in my life? What about the others around me? Have I surrounded myself with possessing or merely professing Christians? Will I kowtow to others and dishonor God, or will I glorify God "even in this?" 3) Some of Job's responses to tragedies are some of the greatest statements of faith in the Bible and have given me enormous comfort and strength as I have been faced with many of his very tragedies.
God-Within-Us Warring Against the Sins of the Flesh - Romans 7 - Paul gives us the reason for God raising us from the dead in Christ Jesus, with Him - "that we should bear fruit to God...serving in the newness of the Spirit...not in the oldness of the letter." But he also warns that there will continually be a war between our new inward man devoted to God against the flesh of this earth.
Lessons From 3 Generations of Believers:
From the Octogenarian (retired - accounting and finance): If we endure to the end, we will be victorious for Christ. We must "keep our eye on the prize - the author of our faith." Do not fall by the wayside. Endure to the end.
From the Twenty-Something (lawyer): The same lessons with Job's life apply to this. It is the war between the forces of good and evil, between God and Satan. The lessons and applications are the same in both the OT and NT readings today.
From the Sixty-Something (college instructor): 1) It is comforting to know that Paul also struggled with wanting to live a Christlike life during the age in which he lived. Today our society is so sex-obsessed, consumed with conspicuous consumerism and materialism, the idolizing of sports and entertainment figures, seeing revenge and evil as a sport, so ridiculing of Christianity, that it is a constant struggle to try to live a life of humility before God and in service to others, to maintain the mind of Christ in a world dominated by other spirits. Thus, the need for constant study and meditation on His Word, prayer, praise and thanksgiving in our personal and collective lives as believers.
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