He Leadeth Us

Job 23:14 teaches, “For He performs the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things are with him.”

Job 23:10 says “But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.”

Job 23:6 said,  “Will he plead against me with his great power? No; but he would put strength in me.”

Struggle, strive, strain and worry comprise something not Christian, for He is faithful who has called us, who will also do it. God is performing the thing concerning me. But, Job declares these profound truths in a time of severity.

Matthew Henry explains:

“I am loath to think holy Job would charge the holy God with iniquity; but his complaint is indeed bitter and peevish,

and he reasons himself into a sort of patience per force, which he cannot do without reflecting upon God as dealing hardly with him,

but he must bear it because he cannot help it; the worst he says is that God deals unaccountably with him.”

Let’s reflect: Job gains a valuable patience, but, by aligning, out of necessity, his own practical observation and will with his own theological statement of Job 2:10   “…shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?”

“patience” comes from the Latin word “pati” and means to suffer.” It can be translated, “undergo” and Greek words include, “enduring”, “sustaining”, and “perseverance”.

James 1 teaches that patience is accomplished through a test of your resolve, a trying of your conviction. It also has a “perfect work” accomplished in the enduring.

This “perfect” work means:

1. A completed course with joy
2. spirit, soul, and bodily perfection
3. Want for nothing. Never failing love.

Sounds like heaven? Yes and precisely then does it complete itself.  But, we get a taste here, hallelujah.

Paradoxically, this describes how love happens to a person. How?

It strips us of all of love’s hindrances.

1. Impatience
2. unkindness
3. envy
4. vaunting self
5. puffing self up,
6. unseemly behavior,
7. self seeking,
8. being easily provoked,
9. thinking evil;
10. Rejoicing in iniquity,
11. not rejoicing in the truth;
12. Never Bearing all things,
13. Not believing all things,
14. Not hoping all things,
15. not enduring all things.
16. Failing

The experiment, (the trial), produces hope, and that makes us “not ashamed.” No more dis-grace! Shame vanquishes because of the suffering of another who took our place; took our punishment.

So, in our suffering, “consider Him, (Christ), that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.” Is the exportation of Hebrews 12:3

Friends, without our taste of suffering we could not consider, (calculate, identify with) His suffering, nor have any feel for what He endured. Our suffering, our light affliction, works for us an eternal weight of glory because we are capacitated  to digest, understand, identify with, and readily receive the suffering Christ endured and to perceive its enormous demonstration of love toward us. Yes, toward you and me.

In closing, we have all read or heard many stories which exemplify mankind’s endurance. There is reward in it on a temporal level. It satisfies our desperation toward self-preservation.

However, our Christian suffering has a higher aim.

First, it is allowed by God. Second, it enables us to know, in a deep way, significant meaning which has relevance to our suffering and all of our life. Third, it leads us to think on a plane beyond the natural. Fourth it teaches us about hope, our confident expectation, and love, our security forever.

As we progress in years, the body weakens, but inward renewal can heighten. Our expectation becomes solid, our sense of His love richer, our joy waxes un-contained,  We are growing closer, closer to Him, absorbed in His delight, enthralled with His love for us, enamored by the beauty of it. Thank you Lord. Love ya