#DailyDevotion You’re Doing Better Than You Deserve
February 7th
Read Job 4:1–21
Job 4:4-8 Your words have upheld him who was stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble knees. (5) But now it has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed. (6) Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope? (7) “Remember: who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? (8) As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same… Job 4:17-19 ‘Can mortal man be in the right before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker? (18) Even in his servants he puts no trust, and his angels he charges with error; (19) how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed like the moth.
Eliphaz utters things which seem to follow the ways of the world in the beginning. Although he confronts Job with the fact that he himself has preached to, exhorted and comforted others who have had misery fall upon them, when it happens to Job, he is dismayed. Eliphaz then speaks those words which seem wise and reflects the ways of the world otherwise known as karma. “(7) “Remember: who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? (8) As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.”
Yes in the normal course of things, it does seem that those who sow trouble eventually reap trouble. If you’re a lying, stealing, adulterous, and murderous person these things seem to fall back on you. You tend to get your comeuppance before those who have seen your past actions. But sometimes they don’t. People in the days of Malachi once evilly thought, Mal 3:14 “’It is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the LORD of hosts? (15) And now we call the arrogant blessed. Evildoers not only prosper but they put God to the test and they escape.'”
But Eliphaz also spoke this, “Can mortal man be in the right before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker?” Indeed it is also written, Ecc 7:20 “Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.” And again Paul quotes the Old Testament, Rom 3:10 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one;…” So no one can truly say they do not deserve the bad things that happen to them. There is no one who is perfect and does not need the discipline of the Lord. Yet our Lord Jesus Christ is gracious to all. Mat 5:45 “… For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” 2Co 5:14 “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; (15) and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” So the things we endure, particularly when we cannot point to what we did to deserve it look to Jesus to know God’s good will toward us. Even if we are suffering we know that in it never the less our Father in heaven loves us because He sent is Son to die for us, for you. The life we live, whether we experience good or we experience evil, it is a life for Christ Jesus.
Heavenly Father give us hearts that are humble that recognize whatever we are experiencing is it better than we deserve. Help us to see your great love for us when we are being disciplined that we may not lose heart of hope of your redemption. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.