May 20, 2018

Grown Up Christian (Part II)

Click here to listen to Grown Up Christian - Part I

Tribe Recap May 20, 2018 | Job 2:9-10 | I Cor 13:17 | Job 13:15 | Job 42:1-6

Unfortunately for us believers, we are not able to see all that goes on in God’s throne room or in the spiritual realm.  Perhaps if we had greater insight we would know more of the ‘why’ things happen, especially when they are tragedies, losses or painful experiences.  This was Job’s life.  He could not see the ‘why.’

At the beginning the book of Job, Satan is before God being interviewed and gloats about all the trouble he is causing on the earth and God responds by pointing out Job’s upright life and blameless character.  Satan retorts that Job is only serving God for what he gets out of it.  So God bets against this and gives permission for Satan to take away Job’s children and possessions.   Later Job’s health is also destroyed.  God was betting that Job would hold on to their relationship even when everything went wrong.

Job’s troubles put him in the position to demonstrate his own ‘why’ for serving and worshiping the Lord. Why was Job serving God and turning away from evil?  All the ‘perks’ were gone!  And yet, Job did not give up his faith.

Even when all is lost, a mature, ‘grown up Christian’ does not abandon their faith. Material reward is not the reason a mature believer serves God.  The reason a grown up Christian serves God is because they come to know him and love him; they have come to be God’s friend and as such are in the relationship simply to have God himself.

Job, sitting on a garbage heap, may be complaining about his lot but he never once walked away from God.  If anything, he wants to talk to him now more than ever. 

Job’s friends, who probably did mean the best, simply respond to Job by accusing him of some secret sin instead of comforting him.  Accusation seems to be the way we humans explain many unexplainable things.  Satan, which means ‘the accuser’ set his accusations against Job, and Job, going out of his mind, accused God.  It is interesting that in all three cases the accusations were wrong.  Job’s friends were incorrect, Satan missed it, and Job was misguided and blind.

It’s for good reason that I Corinthians 13:17 tells us to ‘believe the best’ in each other.  A grown up Christian believes the best in others and refuses to accuse.  Mature believers know that they can’t see everything needed to make a perfect judgment so they don’t judge at all: they believe the best in others.  Grown up Christians don’t accuse others.

Finally a grown up Christian doesn’t blame God in the end.  While a mature believer is brutally honest with God, like Job or King David, in the end, they see that God is not the source of their pain and disappointment.  In the book of Job, it was Satan who created all the mayhem and destruction in Job’s life.  A mature believer knows God is not to blame for the evil found in the world.

Job said “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him” because he knew that God was the only thing worthy to be trusted in a world where everything can and will go wrong.  One day, we will walk and talk directly with God and we will see the reason behind a life of acting like a grown up Christian.  Refuse to accuse, trust God, believe the best in others, and you will be proof on the earth that God is good, a defender and vindicator of God’s good character.