Job IV

 It’s easy to forget that Job was an ordinary man made extraordinary by his devotion and faithfulness to God. Every time we encounter a testimony of faithfulness and endurance that seems near impossible to believe, we must remind ourselves that whoever they were and whatever they went through, they were ordinary men and women just like you and me, having to contend with extraordinary circumstances that could only be traversed by having full and unwavering trust in the God they served.

We try to downplay the need for enduring faith in our day and age. Being blameless and upright, fearing God, and shunning evil is not exciting enough because we have to compete with the world and its excesses, whether in the form of entertainment or the rush to validate individual feelings, however absurd those feelings might be. We fail to acknowledge that the premise of the thesis itself is flawed; therefore, any conclusion we might arrive at will likewise be flawed. We are not competing with the world, or better said, the world is not competing with the household of faith. They can’t. There’s no competition there. It’s like pitting a lion against a skunk. The best the skunk can do is make a stink, but giving the lion a run for his money is outside the realm of possibility. What God has on offer for His children so far surpasses anything the world can conceive of, that it’s not even worth mentioning.

Since the devil can’t compete on a spiritual playing field, the only thing left in his arsenal that might make a dent with is deception. Essentially, he has to put lipstick on a pig, hoping enough people aren’t paying attention, and fall for his ruse. We have to make allowances to make church more palatable to the younger generation, don’t we? We have to compromise the truth and lower the standard of the gospel because we’ve built this giant sanctuary that’s sitting half empty, and we have mortgage payments to cover. Look at the guys across town. Ever since they incorporated fog machines and a mosh pit, their attendance has gone through the roof.

Eternity is all well and good, but people are looking for relief and the promise of an easy life here and now. We can’t keep talking about enduring to the end or consecrating ourselves unto God so that we may remain steadfast in the face of the storm because we’ve done enough polling to know that it’s not what people want to hear.

People want to be told that a half-hearted commitment to God is a cure-all for anything and everything, whether a way out of a minimum-wage job or a remedy for that pesky acne that keeps coming back. We’ve reframed the message of the gospel to cater to men’s flesh, men’s wants, and men’s desires, downplaying the spiritual and eternal, the rebirth to a new life and a new understanding of our purpose during the finite time we are here.

God is not a magic genie you can call on any time you need something fixed or a few extra bucks in your pocket. He is God.

Another thing the modern-day church doesn’t want to hear because it shatters the illusion of being little gods is that God is sovereign. There can only be one sovereign. Although man is created in God’s image, man is not entitled to His attributes. To say that man is sovereign in his own right is to say that man is on equal footing with God Himself. The dynamic of creation and Creator will always exist, and though God loves you more than you can ever conceive, He will not share in His sovereignty. In simple terms, when one is sovereign, they possess supreme authority, with the option of exercising it at will. You don’t have that, nor do I, nor does anyone else who insists they are a little god.

Psalm 115:3, “But our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases.”

That sums it up quite nicely, no matter how many individuals insist that godhood and its inherent sovereignty were imputed to man along with righteousness. Sorry to break it to you, but you are not a god, little or otherwise. As such, it is incumbent upon us to submit to the One True God and acknowledge His sovereignty in all things.

Although he was a blameless and upright man, Job still feared God because he understood what many today fail to: God is sovereign over all creation! Even though the Psalms were centuries away from being written, Job understood that God is in heaven and He does whatever He pleases, meaning there is nothing outside the realm of possibility when it comes to what He can do.

The God we serve spoke the universe into being. He said, "Let there be light," and there was light. He formed Adam out of the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils. His majesty is unfathomable to the human mind, yet every day, we attempt to whittle Him down and shrink Him to our level of understanding.

When man tries to fit God into a box and insists there is something He can’t do or something He should do, when God does the opposite of their expectations because He does whatever He pleases, it is inevitable that they will balk and bristle or, at the very least, feel slighted at having their input ignored. This can lead to a crisis of faith or a misunderstanding of God’s character, which is why it’s crucial to acknowledge and submit to His sovereignty.

God is the final authority on all manners, and there is nothing and no one that can stand against His plans and purposes. If He were a cruel God, a mean God, a God who took pleasure in the suffering of His creation, then the reality of His sovereignty should be a reason to fear and dread. However, we know that He is love, the very definition thereof, and whatever circumstance He may allow in our lives will work together for good. Limited as we are in our understanding and having the inability to see into tomorrow, never mind ten years down the path of future time, all we can do is trust fully that He is working a good thing in us.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.