JOB 1:1-12
THREE REASONS JOB FEARED GOD
1. Job 42:2: “I KNOW THAT YOU CAN DO EVERYTHING, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.”
AND EVERYTHING GOD DOES HAS A RIGHTEOUS PURPOSE. In other words, God is worthy of my praise, my fear (my worship and love), and my faithfulness to his commandments, because God is Almighty God, He can do everything. And better yet, God has a good purpose for doing everything.
- “He stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth on nothing” (Job 26:7 NKJV).
- “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life” (33:4 ESV).
2. Job 42:2: I know that you can do everything, and that NO PURPOSE OF YOURS can be withheld from You.”
- Eccl. 12:13: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”
- Job 1:8: “And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?”
- God created everything. God can do everything. God has a purpose for everything, and I am part of his everything; I am a part of his purpose. Whatever is happening to me, must be a part of his purpose for everything. Because I am fearing God and keeping His commandments.
3. Job 1:21: “…Naked I CAME from my mother’s womb and naked I SHALL RETURN there…”
- Job 27:3: “As long as my breath is in me, and THE BREATH OF GOD IN MY NOSTRILS, my lips will not speak wickedness…”
- Eccll. 12:7: “And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.”
- 2 Cor. 5:10: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”
- I came from God, and I will return to God. I want to return to God holy as I came from God. THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS TO FEAR GOD. TO TRUST GOD.
Fearing God is God’s purpose for us and things are merely tools of God’s purpose through us. Job understood that the physical things that he had were merely tools for God’s spiritual purpose for him. So while he had the things, he used them to glorify God, as a husband, a father, a friend and as a community leader. But when the tools were taken away; he accepted that his spiritual purpose remained, and God had not changed, and neither should his faith. So he continued to glorify God as a faithful husband to a wife with a weakened faith, as a grieving father, as a faithful friend to his religiously confused friends, and as a spiritual leader to his community.
CALL TO FAITH: Job understood something in his time, that we must come to accept and understand about God becoming flesh in our age. God did the one thing for our souls, that nothing in this world could pay for or do for our souls. In fact, every man and woman in the Old Testament understood enough about this (see Hebrews 11).
That even if God did nothing extra to provide what we see as important to happiness in this life; things like family, food, shelter, and even money and power, God would have given us the one thing that our “created wonderfulness” (Ps. 119:14) or “the general blessings” that God gives to all, good or bad (Matthew 5:45–he sends the rain on the just and the unjust) cannot pay for your eternal salvation. Because only God could save us, and only the God who gave us physical and spiritual life, could bring us eternal spiritual life through his pure blood.
- 1 Peter 1:18-19: “knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.”
Titus 3:5: “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,”
Is God proud of your Faith?
RICHARD NEPAUL 