Let’s forget about ourselves And magnify the Lord and worship Him
Let’s forget about ourselves And magnify the Lord and worship Him
Let’s forget about ourselves And magnify the Lord and worship Him
Oh worship Him, Jesus Christ our Lord
This chorus of my youth is the music of my mind this morning as Job responds yet again to his friends who stand in rebuke of him over his current condition. Instead of stopping to defend himself; he turns their attention to God, the Creator of the earth. Job talks readily of God because He knows who God is and what He has done. Job will not turn his back on the Almighty even though he questions his circumstances with God honestly. Job wonders what sin has caused his condition only because his friends continue to beat him over the head with religious words explaining what they think God has done to Job because of his sins.
Job’s story continuous to be laborious and uncomfortable to read as our anger builds against his unkind, unmerciful friends who think their mission is to make Job a project that they must fix. Yikes! Do we do that? Yeah, sometimes we do when we see a friend suffer and we just want it to end for them. We want reasons for the seasons in our lives. We humans want explanations for what happens in us and to us.
What is the remedy? Please pause to praise to God first, seek His wisdom, humbly surrender to His will. Listen to God’s response to us before thinking, saying, or doing anything in His Name. If we do not use this daily discipline that our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ taught us then we live only for ourselves and that never goes well for us!
Job 26
Then Job replied:
2 “How you have helped the powerless!
How you have saved the arm that is feeble!
3 What advice you have offered to one without wisdom!
And what great insight you have displayed!
4 Who has helped you utter these words?
And whose spirit spoke from your mouth?
5 “The dead are in deep anguish,
those beneath the waters and all that live in them.
6 The realm of the dead is naked before God;
Destruction lies uncovered.
7 He spreads out the northern skies over empty space;
he suspends the earth over nothing.
8 He wraps up the waters in his clouds,
yet the clouds do not burst under their weight.
9 He covers the face of the full moon,
spreading his clouds over it.
10 He marks out the horizon on the face of the waters
for a boundary between light and darkness.
11 The pillars of the heavens quake,
aghast at his rebuke.
12 By his power he churned up the sea;
by his wisdom he cut Rahab to pieces.
13 By his breath the skies became fair;
his hand pierced the gliding serpent.
14 And these are but the outer fringe of his works;
how faint the whisper we hear of him!
Who then can understand the thunder of his power?”
Job 27, Job’s Final Word to His Friends
And Job continued his discourse:
2 “As surely as God lives, who has denied me justice,
the Almighty, who has made my life bitter,
3 as long as I have life within me,
the breath of God in my nostrils,
4 my lips will not say anything wicked,
and my tongue will not utter lies.
5 I will never admit you are in the right;
till I die, I will not deny my integrity.
6 I will maintain my innocence and never let go of it;
my conscience will not reproach me as long as I live.
7 “May my enemy be like the wicked,
my adversary like the unjust!
8 For what hope have the godless when they are cut off,
when God takes away their life?
9 Does God listen to their cry
when distress comes upon them?
10 Will they find delight in the Almighty?
Will they call on God at all times?
11 “I will teach you about the power of God;
the ways of the Almighty I will not conceal.
12 You have all seen this yourselves.
Why then this meaningless talk?
13 “Here is the fate God allots to the wicked,
the heritage a ruthless man receives from the Almighty:
14 However many his children, their fate is the sword;
his offspring will never have enough to eat.
15 The plague will bury those who survive him,
and their widows will not weep for them.
16 Though he heaps up silver like dust
and clothes like piles of clay,
17 what he lays up the righteous will wear,
and the innocent will divide his silver.
18 The house he builds is like a moth’s cocoon,
like a hut made by a watchman.
19 He lies down wealthy, but will do so no more;
when he opens his eyes, all is gone.
20 Terrors overtake him like a flood;
a tempest snatches him away in the night.
21 The east wind carries him off, and he is gone;
it sweeps him out of his place.
22 It hurls itself against him without mercy
as he flees headlong from its power.
23 It claps its hands in derision
and hisses him out of his place.”
WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?
Job’s discourse is not complete; but we will pause here to listen to God speak to us in our circumstances that confuse and perplex us. Job is doing what we all must do—Look to God first and always with humbled hearts and proclaim who He is in the circumstances of life. Life on earth is fleeting but God is not. God is God and we are not. Man cannot be compared with God. God’s immensity cannot be measured.
Seek the wisdom of God. Listen to His Voice over the voices of the world. Before magnifying God’s great power in the universe, Job first rebuked Bildad for giving him no help. Job had no power, but Bildad didn’t make him stronger. According to his friends, Job lacked wisdom; yet Bildad, nor his friends shared one piece of wisdom or insight.
If the Lord truly is our Shepherd; then we must follow the Shepherd’s voice who leads us to His best for us. Personally pray the psalm of praise to God right now!
“The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters,
he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Psalm 23
“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.” John 10:-28, NKJV
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me is a profound declaration by Jesus, the Good Shepherd. These Words signify our intimate relationship between Jesus and we as His followers—all who believe and call on His Name!
These words also declares that believers not only recognize His Voice but they run to Him when He calls. The sheep trust that His voice will lead them to all that is good for them and will protect them from the enemies who seek to devour them. He’s done it before and He’ll do it again. Trust solidifies our faith. Our obedience demonstrates our love for God. THIS is relationship. His Voice draws us to Him, causing us to separate ourselves from the voices of the world. For surely His goodness and love will follow us all the days of our lives!
Job’s relationship with God is surely intimate and profound. His friends just don’t know this relationship treasure Job has because they are more focused on the “fix.”
“Job’s hymn of praise begins with a statement about God’s power in the heavens, and it describes the earth’s appearance in space with remarkable scientific accuracy. God also controls the clouds and the rain. Job praised God for marking out the horizon where the sun rises and sets. God controls day and night, land, and water. The “pillars of heaven” is a poetic phrase for the mountains; they rest on earth, but they seem to hold up the heavens. When God speaks, the mountains tremble! (Job9:6)—Warren Wiersbe, Wiersbe Study Bible
Because Job’s friends saw God’s handiwork in nature, they thought they knew all about God and could, therefore, explain God to Job. Job said that just the opposite was true: “the thunder of His power who can understand?” What we see of God in creation is but the fringes of His ways, and what we hear is but a whisper of His power!
Wiersbe’s commentary helps us to understand the current position of Job the era in which he walked the earth; “Job’s words in chapter 27 may sound cruel to us, especially in light of what we are taught about forgiving our enemies by both Jesus (Matthew. 5:38–48) and Paul (Romans. 12:17–21). But Job lived even before the Mosaic law was given, let alone the Sermon on the Mount, and we must not expect him to manifest the kind of spirit that was seen in Jesus (Luke 23:34) and Stephen (Acts 7:60). In God’s sight, however, Job was right. God had twice declared before the court of heaven that “there is none like [Job] on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil” (Job 1:8; 2:3). Job’s enemies were wrong, and Job had the right to ask God to vindicate him. In fact, God was the only one who could prove Job right and his enemies wrong.”—Wiersbe Study Bible
So, indeed, lets forget about ourselves and our current circumstances to praise the Lord, be still to listen to His Voice above all other voices! God will not fail to lead us to all that is right and good for us in His timing in His ways. His ways are perfect. Always perfect.
Lord,
May YOUR will be done! I’m listening!
In Jesus Name, Amen!
Daily Manna (Coffee with Jesus) 