How Long?

SCRIPTURE

Job 19:1-22 (NRSV)

Job questions God's ways

Then Job answered:
"How long will you torment me,
and break me in pieces with words?
These ten times you have cast reproach upon me;
are you not ashamed to wrong me?
And even if it is true that I have erred,
my error remains with me.
If indeed you magnify yourselves against me,
and make my humiliation an argument against me,
know then that God has put me in the wrong,
and closed his net around me.
Even when I cry out, 'Violence!' I am not answered;
I call aloud, but there is no justice.
He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass,
and he has set darkness upon my paths.
He has stripped my glory from me,
and taken the crown from my head.
He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone,
he has uprooted my hope like a tree.
He has kindled his wrath against me,
and counts me as his adversary.
His troops come on together;
they have thrown up siegeworks against me,
and encamp around my tent.

"He has put my family far from me,
and my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.
My relatives and my close friends have failed me;
the guests in my house have forgotten me;
my serving girls count me as a stranger;
I have become an alien in their eyes.
I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer;
I must myself plead with him.
My breath is repulsive to my wife;
I am loathsome to my own family.
Even young children despise me;
when I rise, they talk against me.
All my intimate friends abhor me,
and those whom I loved have turned against me.
My bones cling to my skin and to my flesh,
and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends,
for the hand of God has touched me!
Why do you, like God, pursue me,
never satisfied with my flesh?


DEVOTION

Ah! Who hasn't prayed a prayer like this when bad things happen?

I think if we are honest, we would admit that we have blamed God (in anger), more than once when the going got really tough.

I am so glad that God is big and bad enough to handle our rage. I am glad that God does not cast us aside when we say mean and hurtful things to God, instead, God draws us nearer and loves us just as much.

God proved that there is nothing we can do to make God stop loving us when Jesus went to the cross to save us from our sin and gift us with eternal life.

Although our SIN is abhorrent to God, WE ARE NOT.

God loves all of us no matter what and there is nothing that we can do to out sin, outfox, or out run the love of God revealed to us in Christ Jesus.

I'm mighty glad about that.


Let us pray:

Dear God, thanks for loving me so much and for forgiving me of all my sin. Please do forgive me and fill me with your Holy Spirit so that I can live into your will for my life as I share the good news about Jesus. In His Name, Amen.

INVITATION

If you have questions about how to become a friend and follower of Jesus, please see the devotion entitled, “Come to Jesus” @ http://bit.ly/JVhaLta