Job XIX

 A test of one’s faith reveals the hidden motives of the heart, if there are any to be revealed. Men may have Christ on their lips and claim to serve Him, but once the rubber meets the road and the hammer hits the anvil, if there was any other reason than true devotion for their declarations, it will be revealed in short order.

The tragedy that men serve God only because of what they can get from Him is exacerbated by the reality that if they served Him from pure motives with a true heart, what they would gain by way of fellowship and intimacy with Him would pale in comparison to anything they could have hoped to receive in the material. Essentially, they’re foregoing gold refined by fire for beads and trinkets that hold no value.

What God has reserved exclusively for His own is superior in every way to anything the world can offer, no matter how much of the things of the world might be in play. You can gain the whole world, but if your soul is lost, where is the gain? When our focus shifts from pursuing righteousness and holiness and consistently committing ourselves to the ways of the Lord and His will for our lives to the things of this earth and their passing impermanence, we’re risking the eternal for the temporal, and when the temporal things go away as they often do, we have nothing left but resentment and bitterness.

God didn’t do it to us; we did it to ourselves. We chose to bypass true and lasting friendship with God. We chose to bypass God knowing our name and looking upon us with delight for the praise and acceptance of duplicitous men whose friendship is situational and temporary.

There is very little talk of perseverance within the modern-day church because it requires exertion and is taxing to the natural man. It requires self-sacrifice and choosing to pursue God with consistency and desire rather than the things of this world.

It goes beyond the declarations we make with our lips and goes deeper into the desires of our hearts. The Word tells us that where our treasure is, there also will our hearts be. If one contradicts the other, it’s always the heart that will win out over the words we speak because our heart resides where our treasure is. Therefore, we can say one thing and do another, and the thing we do exposes the genuine desire of our hearts.

If I say I love the Lord with all my heart, mind, and soul, yet my consistent pursuits are in violation of His tenets, His word, and His will, do I genuinely love Him? If I pursue things in this life other than Him, or if I pursue Him as a means to an end and not as the end all and be all of my existence, the time will come when the true intent of my heart will be revealed.

Job desired God above all else. His singular pursuit was the will of God, and the yearning of his heart was His presence. There was nothing he was willing to trade God for or relegate Him to a second-tier pursuit in his life. It’s the only way he remained standing upon hearing of the devastation wrought upon his possessions and his household.

Given the time he was living in, the first piece of devastating news he received likely went with the territory. Raiders were not uncommon in those days, and men would actively seek out others from whom they could take and make it their own. Nowadays, it’s less common in civilized nations since governments have taken to doing what the raiders used to in the olden days: taking men’s hard-earned possessions lawfully via taxation. Back in the day, it was every man for himself, and the notion of others coming to take your oxen or your donkeys was an ever-present reality.

But then the second messenger came, and it wasn’t something Job could write off as a fluke or a regular occurrence. A fire had fallen from heaven and burned up his sheep and his servants, consuming them all. The servant had called it the fire of God, but knowing that God had given Satan leeway to test Job, we know it was not so. God did not actively participate in Job’s testing. He allowed Satan to test and sift him. Job wasn’t being punished for his faithfulness to God by God, but his faithfulness was being tested by Satan, hoping he could prove God wrong in that Job’s worship was sincere and without ulterior motives.

It’s not splitting hairs; it’s understanding that if you are going through a trial, a valley, or a shaking, it’s not God punishing you; it’s Him allowing you to be tested so that your faith may be proven pure and true. He considers you worthy of testing; therefore, He is allowing you to be tested. That in and of itself is an honor, although few see it as such. Even those being tested fail to see its glory in the midst of it, only realizing the truth of it after the testing has passed.

1 Peter 4:12-13, “Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.”

We read of Paul and Silas praying and singing hymns while in prison with their feet in stocks or the disciples rejoicing for being counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Christ, and it’s hard to reconcile or make sense of it if our perception of suffering, testing, hardship, or persecution is not biblical.

If we believe that being a child of God entitles us to the best this world has to offer or that it’s a guaranteed ride on easy street until we find ourselves sitting at the King’s feast, ready to dig in, then we will balk at the presence of hardship or testing in this present life, thinking ourselves undeserving of such things.

Job could have reacted similarly to the things that had befallen him had his view of what it meant to serve God been similar to that of many churches today. How dare God allow this tragedy to come upon me when I’ve served Him faithfully? How dare calamity come upon me when I’ve committed my life to Him?

Job’s attitude was similar to that of the disciples of Christ, wherein, when they encountered difficulty or hardship, they understood it was for a greater purpose, and though it was painful in the present, it did not diminish God in his eyes, nor did it weaken his commitment to Him.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.