A Nugget from New Life Network
Scripture for the Day Feb.27, 2019
Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? (John 14:9)
The first question we asked in our first devotional about the Book of Job was this: Is the real theme of the Book of Job “suffering” or is it “spiritual warfare”? It is very important how you answer this question! If you think the answer is suffering, you are going to miss the knowledge God wants to give us about spiritual warfare.
In my opinion, spiritual warfare is what this book is all about. It’s almost like God is pulling back the curtain that separates the visible from the invisible and showing us a particular fight that went on in the spirit world. This one-time event was meant for our instruction in the area of spiritual warfare. It was not meant to create a universal doctrine that promotes the belief that God controls everything and approves all the actions of the enemy. That belief flies in the face of what Jesus did and He was the exact representation of the Father.
When you saw Jesus you saw the Father. Let’s take sickness as an example. One of the tools used by Satan on Job was sickness. The “God is in control of all things” belief system would say that all sickness either comes from God or is approved by God because nothing can happen to a person unless God approves it. Now, let’s look at the ministry of Jesus and see how that squares with that belief system.
We know that Jesus spent a lot of His time healing people and the scriptures tell us this: How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him. (Acts 10:38). Jesus also taught us that a house divided cannot stand. Jesus did not do anything He did not see the Father do. So, if God approves sickness being put on people, how in the world can Jesus go and heal that same person. It just does not square!!!
There is one thing that is important to keep in mind as we go through this study. Job and his friends did not have access to the entire Word of God like we do. They were just guessing on a lot of things. Job obviously had a close relationship with God and because of that saw a lot more clearly than did his friends.
The second question we posed in our first devotional was this: Is God’s SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) the “hedge” or the “approval of sufferings”? The hedge is first mentioned in Job 1:10 where Satan is talking to God and he says this: Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. The hedge is not mentioned again but it is probably one of the most important tools of God we all need to understand. God said Job feared God, was perfect and upright, and eschewed evil. In other words, Job believed in God and because of that God had placed an invisible hedge of protection around him that Satan could not penetrate.
In my opinion, those hedges are still available to believers today. But rather than believe the hedge as a universal doctrine, a large part of the church has latched onto the suffering aspect and made a one-time glimpse into spiritual warfare a universal doctrine of sufferings approved by God.
We have a long way to go in unpacking all of this Book of Job but here is my message. God is not sitting in Heaven having daily meetings with Satan to determine who will receive cancer today or who will die in a fire or automobile accident today. God is love!!! He is not a murderer or child abuser!!! Jesus is a mirror image of the Father. When Jesus healed the sick and raised the dead you saw the true heart of the Father. The Book of Job is an insight into the war between good and evil, Satan and God. It is for our instruction. Just always remember what John 10:10 tells us:
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
