Temptation and Perseverance

"My soul is weary of my life; I will leave my complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. I will say unto God, Do not condemn me; shew me wherefore thou contendest with me. Is it good unto thee that thou shouldest oppress, that thou shouldest despise the work of thine hands, and shine upon the counsel of the wicked? Hast thou eyes of flesh? or seest thou as man seeth?" (Job 10:1-4). Have you ever felt that way in a hard circumstance that seemed like it would never change? I know I have. You don't have to suffer as much acute hardship and loss as Job did to have that kind of feeling. There are plenty of demon spirits in the world that can converge on our minds and spirits when times get tough and we don't know what the heck is going on. They will invariably try to get us to feel that God is against us and that he has decided that we need a good beating. And as it was with Job, there are times that it seems like God is judging us according to the way judgmental people would and do sometimes judge us. In fact if we walk long enough and far enough with Jesus, there will certainly be situations where there are self righteous people judging us erroneously; and it can begin to look like and feel like that God must be in agreement with them. That is what Job felt, and he wasn't the first or the last to feel that way. But thank God none of these things are true. God does NOT judge the way that condemning people judge, and he will ALWAYS reward everyone according to their works and motives, and I mean here and now. Nothing really happens overnight, including things that look like they do; and that includes God's judgment of a situation that we may find ourselves in. "Because to every purpose there is time and judgment, therefore the misery of man is great upon him. For he knoweth not that which shall be: for who can tell him when it shall be?" (Eccl. 8:6,7). Every situation that is going on in our lives, and in the world for that matter, has a time span to it as well as a result. That is the meaning of the quoted verse from Ecclesiastes. Because everything has a time period to it, it can be a very difficult thing to deal with considering we don't know what the end of the matter will be, or when it will be, as the verse states. This is why Jesus made the monumental statement that he made when speaking of the things to come in the end time: "In your patience possess ye your souls" (Lk. 21:19).

If you are dealing with some kind of adversity or hardship due to following after righteousness, remember the admonition of Peter, who told us: "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy" (I Pet. 4:12,13). Peter is of course talking about the ultimate reward for following after the righteousness of God, which is being glorified in body with Christ at his coming (Rom. 8:11; I Cor. 15:51-54; Philip. 3:21; I Jn. 3:2,3). Nevertheless their is a result and a reward so to speak, for every situation that we are dealing with now; and we will receive according to whether we have patiently endured in holiness or not. The scripture guarantees us of these things: "Behold, the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth: much more the wicked and the sinner" (Prov. 11:31). There is no escape from the judgment of God while we live, whether for good or for bad (Psm. 105:7). The bottom line is that regardless of what is going on, or whether we understand why things are going this way or that, we can ALWAYS trust that God is working something for our GOOD: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose" (Rom. 8:28). Is that an overworked scripture? I don't think so. I use it all the time, and I should use it more than that. Nothing can be bigger to our thinking and our faith when we find ourselves in dire straits, and we WILL find ourselves in dire straits over many things. Also the verse that I make the companion of that verse cannot be overworked either: "What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?" (Rom. 8:31). If you're paying attention you will see that this verse is just three verses after the "all things work together" verse. And the powerful point of this verse is that it is CERTAIN that God IS for us! How can I be so certain of that? Well, let's advance one scripture further in that passage, and I think the answer will be evident: "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" (Rom. 8:32).

The reality that Jesus came from heaven and died for us in order to redeem us from sin and reconcile us back to God, is all the assurance that any of us will ever need. He did that because it was his Father's will, and his will also. Nothing could possibly speak louder of God's good will toward man than the suffering and death that he appointed his Son to for our sake, and his Son's compliance with it. You can put all your eggs in that basket my friend, because that is the beginning and end of our faith. He paid the ultimate price and showed the ultimate love, and it was his Father's idea to begin with (Jn. 15:13; Jn. 6:38; Acts 2:23). The real beauty of what God showed us through Jesus, and the anchor of our faith in his good will toward us, is that neither he or Jesus ever change (Mal. 4:6; Jas. 1:17; Heb. 13:8). So let's get back to Job and how he felt while being misjudged and condemned by his friends in his affliction. The scripture tells us that Job endured his trial with patience, so how did things turn out for him? (Jas. 5:11). Well, God came on the scene and rebuked Job's friends for their folly, and commended Job for speaking the right things; and then he had Job pray for his misguided friends. After Job prayed for his friends, God promptly gave him back double for all the loss he had suffered, and had all of his acquaintances that had forsaken him to come back to him with gifts and monetary repayment for leaving him in his time of need. Not only so, but God gave Job seven more sons and three more daughters, which daughters grew to be the most beautiful women in all the land. Oh yeah, God also granted Job to live a hundred and forty more years after his affliction, and allowed him to see four generations of his family after him (Job 42: 7-16). Wow, how I feel the heart-melting love of God in the conclusion of this writing, just thinking on these things. And just think, Job experienced all of this goodness and kindness of God a long time before Jesus came from heaven to demonstrate the real magnitude of God's love for men. So we can not only trust in God in our hardships because of the example of Job, but we now have the ultimate example of Jesus and the benefits of all that he has provided for us by means of his suffering for our sake. No wonder the apostle Paul said, "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift" (II Cor. 9:15). Don't you just love him?! It's certain that he loves us. Amen.