January 25th Readings-Guest Post By Kristi

Today's readings from the Chronological Plan are from Job 22 - 25. Click here to read online.

Chapter 22

Key Verses- "Receive, I pray thee, the law from his mouth, and lay up his words in thine heart. If thou return to the Almighty, thou shalt be built up, thou shalt put away iniquity far from thy tabernacles...For then shalt thou have thy delight in the Almighty, and shalt lift up thy face unto God. Thou shalt make thy prayer unto him, and he shall hear thee..." Job 22: 22,23,27

What We Can Learn- In his last speech, Eliphaz gives Job his most vicious attack, but he also says some beautiful things about the forgiveness of God, even though it is directed at the wrong person. When we sin, we must recognize it as just that, sin. We must read God's Word, His commandments and wishes for our life, and hold them close to our heart. Meditate on them day and night. The closer we are to God, the better we see sin when we are confronted with it, and can call it what it is. If we turn away from our sin and back to God, he will build us up, and give us the power to resist the sin. He will always be willing to take us back into his open arms, no matter what we have done. God's forgiveness and mercy are completely unmeasurable. He is always waiting to hear our prayers of repentance and restore us unto righteousness. The peace that comes from being right with God, is unlike anything this world can offer.

Chapter 23

Key Verse- "But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold." Job 23:10

What We Can Learn- Job was confident that no sin would be found in the fires of refinement, despite what his friends are still accusing him of. When we face God, our deeds will be tried by fire. Anything we have done in vain, or done selfishly will be burned to ash, to nothing. Only things we have done for God's honor and glory will survive the fire as Gold. Only the deeds which survive the fire will be rewarded. (1 Corinthians 3:13-15, 1 Peter 1:7) We should be ever conscious about our actions in life...what we are doing and why we are doing them. I wish I could speak with such certaincy as Job did when it comes to my own life!

Chapter 24

Key Verse- "And if it be not so now, who will make me a liar, and make my speech nothing worth?" Job 24:25

What We Can Learn- Job lists many crimes and criminal offenders and states that they seem to do these things with no judgement from God, or no intervention from Him. I'm sure he did feel that no one could disprove his thoughts. I think almost every Christian has related to Job's feeling here at one time or another. Almost all of us can also think of someone who carries on doing sinful things and has seemingly no retribution for their actions. Some even seem to be so much more blessed than ourselves...rich, endless "good fortune, or luck", one great thing after another happening to them. It can be all to easy to get envious, jealous, or just down right angry. What really gets me is watching good Christian people struggle to conceive, or suffer many miscarriages while so many wicked people are having baby after baby and not taking care of them...giving them up, or even killing them. I've heard many people ask, "Where's God" "Why does He allow this to happen if He's such a loving God?"

We have to be so careful here. God doesn't cause the wickedness to happen, and He's never promised that all those who commit sins will be judged here on earth. Their judgment will come later...(Revelation 20: 11-15) Instead of being angry with them, we should be praying for them to get saved, since we know how devastating their end punishment will be if they don't. The bringing of sin into the world through Adam and Eve, is what caused all the horrible things that go on in this world. God didn't cause it, we did. He's not going to stop every bad thing from happening here on earth. What we also need to remember, and what Job's friends didn't know, is that not all trials and tragedy are a curse or punishment from God. Trials are the means by through which God's blessings can come, and how we are made to be more like Him. (Romans 3: 3-5) We should not always be looking for a way of escape. We should ask God what we can learn from the trial He has given us, and embrace them leaning on Him and using His grace and strength to get through it. (2 Corinthians 12:9) When it comes to temptation, God will not make us to bear more than we can handle, without giving us a way of escape. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Chapter 25

Key Verse- "How then can man be justified with God? Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?" Job 25:4

What We Can Learn- Bildad's short reply might indicate that his friends have exhausted all their answers or were just done arguing and putting forth accusations. He's basically saying in this chapter that if the moon and the stars are not pure in God's sight, how can Job who is like a worm hope to escape unscathed. But Job never claimed that he was without sin, he's just been saying that his current suffering was not incurred because of sin. Job's been saying that he's blameless in this situation. Since I won't be doing another post on this book, I want to leave you with a link to an article that I think sums up what we should learn from the life of Job...

Tomorrow's readings are from Job 26:1-29:25. Click here to read online.