What God does and what I must do

In Deuteronomy 1, we see the balance between what God does and what I must do. As I read through that chapter, I noted all the things God had done for His people. He had set the land before them (vv. 8, 21); He had given the land to them (vv. 20, 25, 36, 39); He went before the people, fought for them, carried them and showed them the way (vv. 30-33). But in order to actually possess the land the people had to do their part. They had to actually enter and take possession of the land (v. 8). But because the people looked around at their circumstances instead of keeping their eyes on God, the got scared and rebelled against what God had command them to do. 

It seems to me that God still operates like that today. He had done everything that is required for us to be able to be saved and live a life of obedience to Him. But we still have to do our part and actually live like that.

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Job - Religion to Relationship

To me the book of Job is not primarily about suffering. It is more about how Job moves from being very religious to having a relationship with God. That journey is summarized near the end of the book:

I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you;(Job 42:5 ESV)

I want to be able to say that in my life. I want to go from just hearing about God to seeing Him with my spiritual eyes. 

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How being self-focused clouds our ideas about God.

In Job 32, Elihu speaks for the first time in the book. What strikes me about his words is how self-focused he is. The words "I" and "me" dominate his words. And twice he even admits that what he is about to speak is "my opinion". Even though he is young, he is impressed with his own wisdom. While it is true that Job's three friends who have already spoken often had wrong ideas about God, Elihu certainly doesn't do any better. 

What I take away from this section of Job is that knowing God is a matter of humility that recognizes that God is so big and so awesome that my little human mind can't ever totally figure Him out. There are always going to be things about God that remain a mystery just because He is God and I am not. That doesn't mean, however, that I can't know God quite intimately because He has revealed so much about Himself in His Word. But to do that I have to get my focus of of myself.

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Be careful with how we view our circumstances.

In Job 29:1-5, Job looks at his circumstances and concludes, wrongly, that God is no longer with him. Our present conditions - good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, easy or hard - are a very poor barometer of God's love and concern for us. 

God had allowed Satan to test Job because God knew that this process was going to result in Job's relationship with God being take to a whole new level. The pain Job was experiencing was for his own good, but he just couldn't see that yet.

We are prone to making the same mistake Job made and making wrong assumptions about how God feels about us based on our circumstances. God is often using the trials in our lives to draw us closer to Him and to develop our character, but we usually don't see that in the midst of our trials.

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Sometimes fewer words are better

In Job 25, Bildad's words are few and for a change, what he says is actually true. God is sovereign and holy and no man is capable of being righteous before God based on what he does. Man is indeed a maggot. But what Bibldad fails to see is God's mercy that is extended to man through His Son, Jesus. This seems to be a common mistake that Job's friends make. They understand that God is holy and righteous and that man is not. But they never seem to comprehends God's grace and mercy.

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