Job CCCXIII

 Job 35:1-8, “Moreover Elihu answered and said: ‘Do you think this is right? Do you say, ‘my righteousness is more than God’s’? For you say, ‘What advantage will it be to You? What profit shall I have, more than if I had sinned?’ I will answer you, and your companions with you. Look to the heavens and see; and behold the clouds – they are higher than you. If you sin, what do you accomplish against Him? Or, if your transgressions are multiplied, what do you do to Him? If you are righteous, what do you give to Him? Or what does He receive from your hand? Your wickedness affects a man such as you, and your righteousness a son of man.”

The older I get, the fewer the words necessary for me to get my point across in any given situation. Not so with the young. They have the energy and stamina to prattle on, and do it with an almost infectious enthusiasm. I have two daughters, and they are both natural-born storytellers. A point they could have made in less than thirty seconds turns into a fifteen-minute dissertation about how the dog got off its leash, and they had to chase it through the neighborhood, and by the time the story is well and truly over, they’ve also sprinkled in ample excuses for why her harness wasn’t fastened properly.   

Elihu was young, admittedly so, and he had no qualms about speaking his mind, being repetitive for effect, and saying the same thing in a slightly different way, in the hope that he could wear Job down to the point of finally admitting that he had sinned. I have no problem with lengthy conversations as long as they are necessary. Some things need to be discussed for longer than two sentences; others not so much.

Even assuming that Elihu was sincere in his discourse, and he wasn’t looking to elevate himself, stroke his ego, or prove his self-evaluated wisdom, the continued attempt to put words in Job’s mouth, words that he never spoke, simply to come out on top or prove that he was right about his judgment of Job, is wrong, and casts a shadow on the intent with which he addressed him.

Job never said that his righteousness was more than God’s, never even hinted at it, nor did he ever query whether pursuing holiness was a pointless endeavor since there seemed to be no profit in it. Job wasn’t looking to work an angle or gain some profit from being a blameless and upright man; he was compelled to pursue these things by his proximity to God and his desire for God’s presence in His life.

The presence of God molds, the presence of God transforms, the presence of God purifies and sanctifies an individual. If the desire of the individual in question is more of God’s presence in his life, he will naturally gravitate toward the good, the noble, the ideal, and the virtuous. He will shun evil, reject the temptations of the world, and the fear of the Lord that is present in his heart will direct him toward a life of obedience to God’s will.

Your pursuit of God is not based on a speculative transaction wherein you hope to get more than you put in, but a sincere and overarching desire to have an abiding relationship with Him, to know true fellowship with the Almighty, and feel His presence throughout.

That’s the one thing Elihu and Job’s three friends didn’t understand: the one constant in his life, the presence of God, was missing from him. God was silent; His presence seemed a far and distant thing, and that’s the one thing Job couldn’t live without.

If you’ve ever asked someone why they are a believer and their answer was because they didn’t want to go to hell, the foundation upon which their spiritual house is built is not love but fear. It is not out of a pure desire to have fellowship with God, to know Him, worship Him, praise Him, serve Him, and love Him, but to avoid eternal judgment.

When man is motivated by fear, all that he does in the attempt to allay it is done grudgingly, with the smallest task seeming like a burden threatening to crush him beneath its weight. The worship is performative, the declarations of fealty insincere, and if one were to come along and make them a better offer, or assure them that they can avoid eternal judgment without serving God, they would jump at the chance in a heartbeat.

When love for God is the motivation and the driving force, we set about doing the work of the Kingdom joyfully, without grumbling or thinking it beneath us, because whatever it is God would have us do, whether preaching from a pulpit or vacuuming the sanctuary, is deemed an honor and a privilege. Love carries you farther than fear ever will, and those with sincere, abiding, and unflinching love for God can endure when those motivated by something other than love have long given up the fight.

One needs only read the letter to the angel of the church of Ephesus to understand the importance of love as the driving force and motivating factor in their worship and devotion. Unlike the church of Laodicea, the church of Ephesus was hitting the mark in every area save one. They labored, they were patient, they could not bear those who are evil, they tested those who say they were apostles and were not, they persevered, had patience, and labored for His name’s sake without becoming weary, yet there was charge against them that Christ Himself insisted must be remedied lest He come and remove their lampstand from its place: they had left their first love!

They were doing all the right things, commendable and worthy of mention, yet the love that once burned bright was now but a flicker, and the warning they received was dire indeed if they did not take steps to repent and remember from where they had fallen. It wasn’t a slap on the wrist; it wasn’t a timeout; it was a warning that, lest they returned to their first love, their lampstand would be removed from its place. A lampstand holds the lamp that provides the light. Without it, they would be in darkness, lest they repent and return to that glorious, all-consuming first love that left room for nothing else in their hearts.

Boast as he might about his own wisdom, Elihu did not understand the type of love that motivated Job, a love that wasn’t a means to an end, but the end itself. All Job desired was God’s presence, without guile, artifice, or ulterior motive. Because he could not fathom such a love, Elihu believed Job to be a proud, arrogant, and self-righteous man who had rightly been brought low, which couldn’t have been further from the truth.       

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.