Today I just felt to share what God is putting in my heart. Perhaps it is just a reminder for me, or maybe someone needs this word to help understand and gain wisdom in the ways of God.
Isaiah declares, "My ways are not your ways, neither are my thoughts your thoughts. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts."Isaiah 55:8
Beloved's, Have you ever been in a place where it looks like God abandoned you? You are doing all you know how to serve the Lord, yet it seems like God has disappeared?
Job felt the same way after he lost his sons, his lands, and everything God blessed him with. His wife said, "why don't you curse God and die."Job 2:9 Job's answer, "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away blessed be the name of the Lord."Job 1:21
Yet, God was not finished with him. God said to Satan, "8 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”
Satan said to God, “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. 11 But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”
The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger. "Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.
Then Satan went to work. First he kills all Job's livestock and servants. Then the fire of God falls and kills all the sheep and the servants. Then all his camels and all the men that took care of them, save one were put to death. Then a tornado hits the house of children and they are all killed. All this happens in a day!
What does Job say, "Naked I came from my mother’s womb and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away may the name of the Lord be praised.” Job 1-22. Yet in all this, Job did not sin or do wrongdoing by making a charge against God. Job 1:23
Beloved's what would we do in similar situations? Would we praise God and say "naked I came into the world, naked I will leave, blessed be the name of the Lord?
In Chapter 2 God and Satan have another discussion with God asking the same question? "Have you considered my servant Job there is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason.” Job 2:3
Satan's reply: “Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give all he has for his own life. 5 But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.”
Then the Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life.”
7 So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. 8 Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes.
9 His wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!”
10 He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”
In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.
The book of Job gives us insight to how God wants us to respond when things don't make sense. Job never denies the Lord or His goodness as God said he wouldn't. Later, when his friends accused him of begin a sinner and doing wrong things, Job begins takes up his own defense.
He begins to lift up his own righteousness above God's reason for allowing the afflictions. All Job knows is that he didn't do anything wrong to deserve this treatment from God.
As the book continues Job keeps mounting defense after defense, even trying to prove "his rightness" and God must be "making a mistake and he didn't understand" why God was allowing this to happen to him, a good man that loves God? He had no clue why God would allow all this to happen to him.
Eventually Job needs a readjustment in his heart about His own righteousness. He begins to question the motives of God of why God allowed this to happen to him. Job believed he was more righteous in his own understanding than God was in His understanding. He concluded that somehow God was not just for letting these things happen to him, but HE WILL STILL TRUST GOD!
I have written this to say, many times things look very bleak, and things happen in our lives that make no sense at all. We would often say, "this can't be the way God has for me." Many leave the Lord and turn around back to the world or dead religion because they don't understand his ways. I know this is true and have seen it with my own eyes.
The word of God says in Hebrews 12:5-6 And have you [completely] forgotten the divine word of appeal and encouragement in which you are reasoned with and addressed as sons? My son, do not think lightly or scorn to submit to the correction and discipline of the Lord, nor lose courage and give up and faint when you are reproved or corrected by Him;
6 For the Lord corrects and disciplines everyone whom He loves, and He punishes, even scourges, every son whom He accepts and welcomes to His heart and cherishes.
Job didn't do anything wrong, there was no one more righteous than Job on the face of the Earth. His life demonstrated his love for God, yet in the testing time, God scourged him.
He allowed Job to suffer things that made no sense to any human reason at all. He lost his sons, his home, his fields, his health and it looked like God hated him. Even his friends accused him of being an evil doer. Yet, Job never lost faith in God, but what he did do was begin to question God's ways of dealing with him as not being "fair."
Have you ever felt that way Beloved's of God? It can sure feel like God "is not fair" when we loose a family member, a loved one, a marriage fails, our finances go south, sickness tries to come on our bodies, kids get in trouble with the law or get hooked on drugs, or even want to live with their partner not married. It can look like God abandoned us after all we did and said for God's glory. Look at how we get repaid by God?
Job tries to come to terms with this, and says one of the most important quotes in his book. He has no clue why this has happened in his life? He does not understand the "ways of God" for surely God would never allow a man to suffer like this for no reason and no guilt in him?
Yet, in a way his life was going to reflect our Lord Jesus who knew no sin but paid the penalty for us. Jesus was never going to question the Father's wisdom or character, and this is the lesson God had to teach Job.
A righteous man was about to gain a greater righteousness in his life as a personal experience by what he suffered. Jesus himself "leaned obedience by the things he suffered." Hebrews 5:8
Job has to begin to learn a deeper death and to come to terms with "dying to self" by not questioning God's character and learning to say, "not my will but thy will be done. Job begins to grasp this when he cries out, "Thou you slay, yet, will I trust you." Job 13: 15
Another words, I don't have a clue why this is going on in my life. I have tried to serve and love you the best I can. It makes no sense to my mind why you are allowing me to suffer and go through these things. But I am going to trust you Lord!
It would have been well for him to stop with that confession for that is what Jesus would do 1000's of years later by saying, "Father if it be possible, take this cup from me, but nevertheless not my will, but thy will be done." Luke 22:42
Yet, Job needs a correction in his heart and spirit Jesus would never need. Job needed to understand the holiness and sovereignty of God's wisdom and choices whether they make sense to him or men is irrelevant to God's purposes.
The word of God says in Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome. Job did not understand this in his own righteousness.
A righteousness God had declared him the most righteous man on the face of the Earth. This same God has now allowed server affliction to come to him for a a purpose. What was that purpose that God had to "scourge" this righteous man who did nothing wrong?
The answer is that Job knew God to a point, but Job needed to truly know God in a much deeper way and trust in God's righteous wisdom above all things. The righteousness Job had was given to him by God and it was "UPON HIS LIFE!"
Now, God's intention was to work that "greater righteousness IN HIS LIFE'! The trials he faced were not to hurt him, but to change him! The Kingdom of God is RIGHTEOUSNESS, PEACE, AND JOY IN THE HOLY SPIRIT ALWAYS NO MATTER WHAT!
Beloved of the Lord, only the imparted righteousness from God will stand the test of the trials we face. That impartation of righteousness is given through testing when we rise up, trust God and overcome!This is why his testimony of his confession, Thou you slay me, yet, I will still trust you is so important!
What is righteousness? It is God's ways of thinking and choices which brings us into his "right standing?" It is when we choose rightly that we pleases God. We will never choose rightly without God's Holy Spirit living in us and working in us.
Our own "righteousness" is but a filthy rag. That is what God had to teach Job when he felt his "choosing to understand God's way in his limited minds ability" was greater than God's wisdom.
Beloved, we are made righteous and in "right standing with God" through the Blood of Jesus, but the righteousness living inside of us comes by the "right choices" we make in God that keep us in "right standing' with God. Job did not deny God, but he had issues in his heart where he began to see his own righteousness as better than God's and this had to be corrected.
Romans 7: 15-20 testifies that we "want to choose right in our heart and mind, but there is another part of our life that wants to choose wrong and what we want." These two choices are at war with each other as it written in Galatians 5:17 "The spirit wars against the flesh, the flesh against the Spirit. "
Why do we face things that make no sense? "Because God is trying to work all things together for our God, because we love God and are called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28
Beloved when God can truly work this in our heart, no matter what happens or what we are facing, we have one choice to make, "thou you slay me, I will yet trust you. You may say, "God this situation is killing me, my heart is broken, empty, at the loss of a love one, or my home, or car, or whatever it is that happens that makes no sense." BUT I AM GOING TO TRUST YOU!
When we face things that make no sense to our human wisdom or mind, it is here God wants to work a deeper righteousness in us. It is here He wants us "to make the right choice in the power of the Holy Spirit" when we are tempted to question his character or don't understand his ways to simply trust him. "Thou you slay me, yet, I will trust you!"
I have had many of those seasons in my life. We had a church split when I was a Pastor. We lost our church building, our Christian school, our home, our car, our friends we thought loved us, over 160 people in our church as a Prophet prophesied was going to happen.
He stood on a chair and said, "many are going to have an opportunity to be a Judas to this ministry and leave." He said even much more than that to us.
He told me God was with me, that I was not going to produce an Ishmael, but Isaac after my own kind. He told me God was going to uproot the foundation of our church and God Himself was going to lay it. He told me that I would be in my office one day crying out to God, they are all gone, but know in that day, God would be with me.
Who wants to hear that as a Pastor? I was numb. Within 6 months the word came to pass. We lost everything including our last elders. When they left I said to them, "not you too!" You can't leave your our best friends." They replied, "we have to leave, everyone else left and their must be something wrong with you." UGH! DAGGER IN THE HEART!
It hurt really bad. My elders tried to take over the church by convincing me I wasn't a Pastor but an Evangelist. What happened to me I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. They undermined me in every way possible to get me to leave.
There were time I felt numb, no where to go, no one understood what was going on. I got no support from anyone. There were days I begged God to take me home! I could not understand his ways or his scourging process. Now I am thankful all that happened, for God worked it together for our good.
Beloved, Even some of my own family members didn't help to comfort me at all, and spoke evil of me. What do you do then? Where do you go? I had only one place to go, God. I remember the day we had to give up our house. I cried and fell on the floor in the same spot I did to worship God when he gave us the house.
On that floor with agony and tears in my heart, with my things going to be on the street in the morning, I said these words, "Thou you slay me, yet I will trust you." I had no promise from God for deliverance, no answers from God to comfort me then. I could only do one thing HOPE AND TRUST IN GOD.
This situation made no sense. Other leaders spread evil about me and told people not to come to our church to help my wife and family. They did all they could do to bury us. Yet, I had to forgive them, not let my heart get hardened, and walk in a love that was so beyond my human love.
This is not the only time I felt the scourging of the Lord. There have been many more times with markers left in my life where God has tested me beyond what I though I could bare, yet all I could say then and all I can say now,"Is though you slay me, yet, will I trust you."
Beloved's, we can't figure everything out and we are not supposed to. We are just to trust Him no matter what, no matter when. Things just may never make sense in this life, but if we trust God they unfold perfectly in His master plan and kingdom.
Faith doesn't work just when we need something or to get something from God. Faith is a life of clinging to, relying upon, trusting, and in cleaving to God no matter what we feel or see with our eyes or feel in our emotions.
It is said of Abraham in Romans chapter 4:
18 [For Abraham, human reason for] hope being gone, hoped in faith that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been promised, So [numberless] shall your descendants be.
19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered the [utter] impotence of his own body, which was as good as dead because he was about a hundred years old, or [when he considered] the barrenness of Sarah’s [deadened] womb.
20 No unbelief or distrust made him waver (doubtingly question) concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong and was empowered by faith as he gave praise and glory to God,
21 Fully satisfied and assured that God was able and mighty to keep His word and to do what He had promised.
22 That is why his faith was credited to him as righteousness (right standing with God).
When God scourges us, he is delivering us from our emotional and natural trust in God and working the Holy Spirits true righteousness in our hearts as our life's experience. The Holy Spirit is working a deeper invisible of faith and trust that can only be done in times like these.
It is here, beyond our flesh, beyond our emotions, beyond our feelings, we make a decision. "Thou you slay me, yet, I will trust you! I will yet trust you!"It is here we truly walk by faith and not by sight!
That trust God works in us in these situations releases Christ overcoming power in our lives in a way we could never get anywhere else. There is no natural way to overcome these trials and temptations as a human being with God. We can only overcome these things by our faith in God and by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony, not loving our lives unto death.
That is what Job had to learn. He had to trust in God when nothing made sense. He had to understand that his human reason and thinking was foolish to God. Job truly didn't know anything about the true intentions and thoughts God had about him in the trial. He assumed things about God's character that were not correct or he would never had to try to defend himself before men and God.
When God was finishing teaching Job the lesson about who He really is , Job had a new confession of faith and understanding of God. His testimony was, "I know that you can do all things no purpose of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge? Surely I spoke of things I did not understand things too wonderful for me to know.
“You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak I will question you and you shall answer me. My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”
That is the work God does in our heart by the process of scourging. We gain a deeper relationship with God of not knowing him the way we have grown used to, but he takes us deeper to TRULY KNOW HIM AND HIS HEART IN A MUCH MORE DEEPER INTIMATE WAY! What did God do for Job at the end of the book: God double blessed him and restored his fortunes!
Are you going through that trial right now beloved? Does nothing make sense? Have you tried to figure out what you did wrong because of all the trials coming your way? Does it seem like God is unfair with you or not answering your prayers? Do you feel numb on the inside and are you crying where are you Lord?
Well, you are smack dab in the middle of God's will. God is scourging you as a son, and bringing forth His life in you in a new and deeper way. Perhaps today God only needs you to turn around and embrace the cross, that the circumstances are killing you instead of running away from it.
The Lord would want you to say with Job, "Thou you slay me, yet, I will yet trust you!" May God have his way with all of us today. Remember beloved Joy does come in the morning.
Honestly Beloved in these times, I didn't even know if I would ever see joy again, or be able to love or forgive again. Even today in present situations I have to learn to say again, "Thou you slay me, yet I will trust you."
Beloved, Things don't have to make sense all the time to our natural mind or to our common sense when it comes to the ways of God and His kingdom. Sometimes we simply must trust Him, for He is God and knows what He is doing.
May these words "THOU YOU SLAY ME, YET, I WILL TRUST HIM, help us today to understand the ways of God in a better way so we can cooperate with His working in our life. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment