Do you allow the Holy One to humble you?
9 Jul 26
Today's devotional: taken from YouVersion, Devotions on F.I.R.E. Year One
Readings:
Job 40
Job 41
Job 42
Acts 15:22-41
I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes (Job 42:5-6).
Do you allow the Holy One to humble you?
After being confronted by God, Job better grasps His glory. He exclaims, “I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You” (Job 42:2). The humbled man of God has his eyes opened to the awesome nature of the Lord. Getting a glimpse at God’s glory brings us to our knees. Isaiah had a similar experience when he “saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up” (Isaiah 6:1). Like Job, he encountered his own sinfulness. He declares, “Woe is me, for I am undone…for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts” (Isaiah 6:5). We should similarly seek His face!
Employment Point: Marvel at God’s glory and humble yourself before Him.
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Reflections
There were a number of times where I went speechless for words because I can only marvel at His glory, His creation and everything else that is before me. The details that went into each and every single living creature if you were to dig, were all astonishing. I stand in awe and humbled and one more thing I realised. We can only do so when we pause enough to stop, to hear, to see and to feel for our ourselves. It would be impossible to experience God if we were running all the time. We need to sit at His feet.
“Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm: “Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. “Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself? Do you have an arm like God’s, and can your voice thunder like his?”
Job 40:6-9 NIV
- I believe we all want to ask God the Whys.. why am I suffering. Why do I have to go through this. Why this.. why that.. I think bottom line it is not about the Why but the Who. Who do we put our trust in. If our trust is full and complete in the Lord, it will no longer be necessary to ask why. For we understand that we have a God and a Father who loves us enough to lift us through all the deep valleys.
“Any hope of subduing it is false; the mere sight of it is overpowering. No one is fierce enough to rouse it. Who then is able to stand against me? Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.”
Job 41:9-11 NIV
- the Lord was mentioning Leviathan and by reference it is also referring to the enemy. We know that our Lord is already victorious. The enemy knows Him as he is LORD. And only the Lord can deal with the enemies. We have no means or ways to overcome, so what more subduing it. And since we cannot deal with our enemies but our Lord can, where does that place Him?
- The Lord is above all. Truly the Almighty, the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings. There is no one else above Him.
- therefore in a way, we cannot question God and say why He doesn’t do things in one way and not the next. Who are we, to even know the whole picture of what is happening, except for Him? If there is only one man we can trust, it can only be Him.
“It looks down on all that are haughty; it is king over all that are proud.””Job 41:34 NIV
- Indeed, if one is proud, the enemy will rule over them. It is not the Lord but their hearts are not set right with God and the enemy is happy to find prideful men. For the Lord’s people are humble and gentle people.
“My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.””Job 42:5-6 NIV
- The Lord had came to Job and his friends and answered him all his questions in a way that is not very direct but yet directly addressed his concerns. Job realised how “daring” he was in questioning God and repent before Him, humbled to the ground.
- Through this reading of Job, we can also see and understand how the Lord works and how His works are beyond us.
- It is therefore important that we recognise that we are all but dust and to come before the Lord in repentance and to seek His forgiveness.
“After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has. So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.””Job 42:7-8 NIV
- Job is not only vindicated, he got justified. His three friends who thought that they know better, had to find burnt offerings and go to Job.
- From the other perspective, we do not know how Job may have felt for his friends right now. The Lord asked him to pray for them (i.e. to love them too). The Lord is also, bringing reconciliation and peace to the relationships.
- I find that in life, the Words ring true that it is better for us to forgive than to do anything else. It grants us the freedom in our minds and also the peace that we need.
“The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys.”
Job 42:12 NIV
- after what Job had gone through, the Lord blessed him again and this time he became even more prosperous than he was previously.
- I can only say that the Lord is just. He never shortchanges anyone.
The only thing after I finished the chapter was wonder about one thing. What happened to Elihu? There was no mention of it.
“Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to choose some of their own men and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas (called Barsabbas) and Silas, men who were leaders among the believers.”Acts 15:22 NIV
- At times God put two people together to learn things and at the same time shape our faith.. learning love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and self-control especially. It doesn’t happen by chance. It is God’s test for us and seeing how we can love our neighbours as ourselves, putting our faith into practice.
“It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell.”
Acts 15:28-29 NIV
- the two men was sent on a short mission and with it, some rules to abide. These requirements are not hard to follow, especially that they are also leaders.
- In my opinion this is also a reminder that even when we are doing God’s work, there will be rules to follow, maybe even more than we usually do or already been practicing so that we will not be led astray
“Judas and Silas, who themselves were prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the believers.”Acts 15:32 NIV
- I believe we as the children of God, should also do the same. To encourage and strengthen our fellow brothers and sisters. We are all one family, and we all belonged to a community. As fellow brothers and sisters, we therefore ought to look out for one another and stand in the gap of necessary.
“They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus,”Acts 15:39 NIV
- as Jesus’s disciples and going around to spread the gospel, having a sharp disagreement may not be something that is helpful to the situation. At the same time, it also tells us that people so close to Jesus may also have their weak moments. So much so this was recorded for all to see.
- I think ultimately the God searches our hearts and it is how our hearts truly respond to others that are important. We may not be perfect as a human being since we are all work in progresses. But in the Lord, He does not need us to be perfect.
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The Great Examination
BY OSWALD CHAMBERS
July 09
Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord. . . . He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins.” —Joshua 24:19
Do you have the slightest reliance on anything other than God? Is there a remnant of reliance left on any natural virtue, any set of circumstances? When it comes to the new dilemma God has put before you, are you relying on yourself in any way?
This is the kind of rigorous self-examination God expects. When you say to yourself, “I can’t live a holy life,” you let yourself off the hook too easily. It’s true that you can’t make yourself holy, but you can always decide to let Jesus make you holy.
Perhaps, like the Israelites in Joshua 24:19, you “are not able to serve the Lord” because your sinfulness and rebellion are too great. Yet it is always possible for God’s almighty power to work through you. You simply have to put yourself in the proper place—the place where you are right with him. Are you sufficiently right with God to expect him to manifest his wonderful life through you?
“The people said to Joshua, ‘No! We will serve the Lord’” (v. 21). The decision to serve isn’t an impulse but a deliberate commitment. You say, “God can’t possibly have called me to this. I’m too unworthy. He can’t mean me.” He does mean you. The weaker you are, the better. The person who has something besides God to trust in doesn’t come anywhere close to saying, “I will serve the Lord.”
We say, “If only I could truly believe.” The point is “If only I will believe.” No wonder Jesus Christ puts so much emphasis on the sin of unbelief: “He did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith” (Matthew 13:58). If we really believed that God meant what he said, what would we be like? Do I dare let God be to me all he says he will?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
Christianity is not consistency to conscience or to convictions; Christianity is being true to Jesus Christ.
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Reflections
I personally believe that serving the Lord truly doesn’t require us to have any special skills. In fact, the lesser skills we have, the better our chances of being picked by him to do His works because it is when we are weak, then we are made strong through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Faith without works is dead. And having the faith in the Lord means that we can truly trust in him to guide us and for him to plan our future. It doesn’t mean that we will know everything that may happen or going to happen, but we just trust in Him, because we know that he cares and love us to an extent that he will not push us to the opposite end and make us suffer for no reason.
And when we say, we believe in Christ, it will be shown in our thoughts, our words and our actions. We will have no doubts and we will be able to follow his commands even when we don’t understand. We know His ways and His thoughts are higher than ours and we can trust fully in him.
And I think a lot of times, it voice down to us whether we are willing to step out of our comfort zone to do something that is strange to us maybe or something that causes us to do something really different from our usual way of patterns. The Lord stretches us as such, and we should not be surprised when we sense that is happening. For it is only when we are being stretched spiritually that we are able to be able to grow, and to be in a more closer relationship with God, to be made right with God, then we can be right with men.
Let’s pray:
Dear heavenly Father, help us to come to you, as we are in our own brokenness, our own inadequacy and in our own small ways that we thought we can never be used by you for your glory. Father You have proven us wrong so many times on the different levels that you can use us and to guide others like our fellow brothers and sisters to you. Father, may You bring us opportunities to minister to them, and to bring glory to Your name. In Jesus’s was precious and loving name we pray. Amen 🙏🏻
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