Job CCXXVIII

 The proud, the haughty, the hedonistic, and the self-indulgent may scoff at the idea that the true worth of a man is not in the wealth he possesses, the authority he commands, or the respect he garners from his contemporaries, but it is one of the most profound truths that one can learn early in life. It frames the entirety of your existence wherein you extend kindness to prince and pauper alike, wherein you show humility in every area of your life, and you learn to value the thing that matters above all else, which is the knowledge of God as Father, Lord, King, and Savior.

Jeremiah 9:23-24, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,’ says the Lord.”

Any pursuit not directly beneficial to your spiritual man is wasted effort, and worse still, a waste of time that you can never get back, no matter how much you try. Any spiritual pursuit not directly focused, anchored, and centered on Jesus is likewise a waste.

If that sounds restrictive or exclusionary, it’s because it is. The supremacy of Christ is not a point of debate. He is singularly the Son of God, He singularly died on the cross for the sins of man, He singularly rose again on the third day, and He is singularly the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by Him.

It’s a straightforward enough statement, yet time and again the spiritual leaders of the day try to water down this all-encompassing truth, insisting that there are different paths to the same destination and that choosing which god to serve is like choosing the flavor of ice cream you prefer. It’s all ice cream in the end, just different flavors. Sure, there are some outliers like sherbet or gelato, but in a pinch, they’ll pass for ice cream, too, because the more choices you give someone, the likelier they are to become a customer.

There is no other way by which a man can be saved than through Jesus. There is only one item on that menu, and there are no specials or substitutions, nor can you bring your own bagged lunch to eat inside. Jesus is the only way.

That doesn’t sound very inclusive. What happened to the big tent mindset? It was a lie, it is a lie, and it will continue to be a lie. If the desire of your heart is to serve God, then you must do so based on His rules and not your own. Anyone who insists on playing by their own rules while claiming to serve the God of the Bible is lying to themselves and the world at large.

No, eternity is not a game, but the analogy applies because of the implicit and explicit rules. If you’re playing basketball and someone starts body slamming his opponents, taking the ball and walking it to the net, they’re no longer playing basketball because they are not adhering to the pre-established rules.

If you want to enter heaven, there is only one door, and you must walk through it to enter therein. The door is Jesus, for only He can save, transform, and sanctify. Only He can reconcile man to God, and anyone who hints at another avenue, or the possibility that there is another way, is lying to your face.

Job 21:9-13, “Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them. Their bull breeds without failure; their cow calves without miscarriage. They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance. They sing to the tambourine and harp, and rejoice to the sound of the flute. They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave.”

While Zophar outlined what the lot of the wicked was, insinuating that Job was wicked because he was checking off all the boxes, Job looked at the world from a different angle, one that shattered Zophar’s thesis.

Without absolute intellectual honesty, we tend to see only what we want to see. Zophar saw what he wanted to see. He saw the ultimate judgment of the wicked, but failed to acknowledge that wicked men still prospered until they didn’t.

Job’s approach was more nuanced, more balanced, because given his former status, he’d likely run across such men with regularity. In Job’s eyes, it seemed as though the wicked had not a care in the world. The wicked prospered, became mighty in power, lived and grew old, they spent their days in wealth, and when the time came for them to shuffle off this mortal coil, they did so quickly and without a protracted season of pain and torment.

It’s far easier to wrap our minds around the prospering of the wicked than it is the trials of the righteous, because, while on the one hand God makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good alike, and sends rain on the just and the unjust, the trials and tribulations of the righteous seem unfair to both our sensibilities and our intellect.

We’ve adopted the world’s mindset that good things happen to good people, bad things happen to bad people, and when something bad happens to a good person, we can’t understand it. Because our understanding is limited, because our thoughts and God’s thoughts are oceans apart, and our purpose and His purpose differ, we tend to become modern-day Zophars, concluding there must be some hidden wickedness that precipitated their trial.

It’s the most straightforward conclusion to reach, requiring no thought, nuance, or follow-up questions. I have a few questions, though. Who determines that the thing is bad, man or God? Who determines that a man is good? Who can rightly say they see the end from the beginning as God does, and conclude that God is being unjust or unfair, given that their view is limited to the present and unable to see into tomorrow?

Whatever trial you may be going through, trust God. Whatever hardship you may be enduring, trust God. He sees what you cannot, He knows what you do not, and His word tells us that all things work together for good to those who love Him, and are called according to His purpose.       

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.