Tag: mighty God

What Can Your God Do?

Job 12:13 for SGL

Old Testament: Numbers 13

Poetry: Job 12

New Testament: Acts 26

What can your God do? Is there anything He can not do? In our Bible readings today we get a glimpse into how a few different people might have answered those questions.

Let’s look at Job 12 first. Job is replying to his friend Zophar who just suggested that since God is great and right and true and since Job is suffering, that must mean that Job is deceitful, evil, or witless (or all three) and is being punished. Job is ready with a quick reply. Do his friends think “wisdom will die with you?” (vs. 1). He certainly still has some spirit left in him.

Most of this chapter Job is giving credit to God for what God can and has and will do:

– giving life and breath to every creature and all mankind (vs 10)

– owning wisdom and power, counsel and understanding (vs 12)

– controlling the waters with drought or flood (vs 15)

– holding strength and victory (vs 16)

– overthrowing men long established – even judges, kings and priests (vs 17-19)

– reveals the deep things of darkness (vs 22)

– makes nations great, and destroys them (vs 23)

– deprives the leaders of the earth of their reason (vs 24) – hmm – interesting

Job is agreeing with his friends on the greatness of God! No one can come anywhere close to comparing to what God is and what He can do. No human wisdom, strength, plans, or power can successfully stand against Him. When God wants to bring them down, He can and He has and He will! He can make them rise. He can make them fall.

Oh, if only the 10 scared spies knew that lesson from Job! How might their lives – and the lives of ALL of the Israelites who listened to them – have been different. In Numbers 13 we see Moses following God’s direction to send out 12 men (one from each tribe) to look over Canaan land which God had promised long ago to Abraham’s descendants. The twelve found the land just as wonderful as God had promised – flowing with milk and honey, huge clusters of grapes, bountiful harvests. It must have looked pretty amazing as they had just spent a couple years in the wilderness mostly surviving on God’s manna and quail – which were also true signs of God’s miraculous provision – but ones they had become accustomed to and now took for granted.

But rather than believing God for the promise and remembering how He had bested the powerful Egyptians, they shrunk back in fear. They knew on their own they were no match for the strength and size of all the people who already lived in the land. But they forgot what God could do. They forgot how God had already gotten them this far. They forgot what was most important to remember! They forgot what their God can do!

-Marcia Railton

Reflection Question

  1. What have you seen God do for others? What have you seen God do for you? What promises do you believe God will indeed accomplish?
  2. When you feel like a grasshopper up against a giant, what can you remember about your God? What can He do?
  3. How does your view of what He can do change what you do?
  4. Who have you told what God can and has and will do? Who else can you tell?
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To Know God

Job 40-42

Job 42 3 NIV

The last chapters of Job leave us with a terrifying and convicting picture. God continues to describe his wonders through his creations. We may have a pretty tame view of God based on a Santa Claus version of him that is popular in churches today. However, when we think about the fact that God, who made every great and mighty thing in the world from alligators to great white sharks to tornadoes and hurricanes, also controls them. He is greater and mightier than anything that exists.

 

When God tells these things to Job, Job recognizes how small and insignificant he is – just like we do when we stand on a mountain top or look at the vastness of the ocean. Job, before this moment, knew a lot about God. He knew the right theology and lived righteously. At the heart of the matter though, he didn’t truly know the depth of who God was, and because of that, he tried to put God in a box. He tried to put limits on God based on his own limited human understanding.

 

If you’ve grown up hearing about God, whether the things you heard were true or not, you may have a mistaken understanding of who God is. It’s like the game of telephone, where one person starts off a chain of spoken words. We all can remember some of the hilarious phrases that are morphed out of simple sentences when we don’t get the original saying from the source. When we try to base our understanding of God on what we’ve heard by word of mouth, we may have some pretty wacky understandings of God. When we come face to face with Him through the scriptures, we begin to see with clarity the awe and majesty of God.

 

That’s our hope for the new year. By the end of the year, we should say, like Job, “I had heard rumors about You, but now my eyes have seen You” (Job 42:5). Let’s commit to this goal together to desire to know God instead of just learning more about God this year.
~Cayce Fletcher
Meet God face to face in His Word.  You can read or listen to God here https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job+40-42&version=CSB
We have finished the book of Job – tomorrow we return to the book of Genesis (chapters 12-15) in our 2020 Chronological Bible Reading Plan

Twisting Truth

Job 6-9

Job 9 19 NIV

This week we will be reading through the bulk of the book of Job, from chapter 6 to 31.  Job has already been struck with monstrous trials: the loss of his material goods and livelihood, the loss of all 10 children at once, a painful disease that affects his entire body from his head to his toes, and a wife who tells him to curse God and die.  We know that these ordeals were not a result of God’s judgement on Job for some large, grievous, hidden sin because in Job 1:8 we heard God’s description of Job – “he Is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” However, in this week’s reading we will hear many conversations between Job and his friends who came to console him, but then turned to some questionable counsel instead.

 

I admire his friends, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, for coming alongside their suffering friend.  Job 2:11-13 says when they heard of Job’s distress they made a plan to meet together to visit Job to sympathize and comfort.  When they saw him they wept – and then they sat with him in silence for seven days and seven nights.  To think, how often do I have trouble finding the time to send a card to a hurting friend?  These friends had the best intentions and were giving of themselves in a time of crisis.  But, good intentions are not always enough.

 

Along with their good intentions, they also were armed with some very true and accurate knowledge of God.  Throughout the passages this week there will be many times where Job’s friends – and Job himself – will share solid truths about God, His majesty, sovereignty, love, justice and faithfulness.  My favorite passage in today’s chapters of the truth of God’s majesty is from chapter 9, verses 4-12.  I didn’t know that the constellations (the Bear, Orion and Pleiades) were named so long ago.

 

But sometimes, even starting with good intentions and a knowledge of the truth (or some truth), is not enough.  This week I want us to look for instances where his friends (and sometimes Job) begin with their good intentions and a truth about God and mankind – but come up with false conclusions – such as – God is just and loving – so if you are suffering you must have done a terrible sin God is paying you back for.  And, while we search for those truths that were then twisted in the ancient book of Job, let us also search our society, our community, our church, ourselves.

 

And – two verses that are a beautiful nugget too good to not repeat:

“He is not a mere mortal like me that I might answer him,
that we might confront each other in court.
33 If only there were someone to mediate between us,
someone to bring us together”

Job 9:32 & 33

The older NIV version in place of “someone to bring us together” says “to lay his hand upon us both”.  I love the imagery.  Thank you, God, for the gift of your Son Jesus who has a hand on us and a hand on you, that he sees us in our suffering and speaks to you on our behalf.

 

Stay in His Word as you Seek Grow & Love in 2020!

Marcia Railton

 

You can read or listen to Job 6-9 here – https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job+6-9&version=NIV

And you can print our Bible reading plan here – 2020 Chronological Bible Reading Plan

God Has Us

Isaiah 43

emoyer-mcgyver

Sticking with TV themes, MacGyver was a sitcom from the 1980’s that was filled with intense and often times ridiculous storylines.  MacGyver worked for a research company and often got into unreal and challenging situations, often including action, fire, and explosives. Time after time, he nearly escaped death by using strange and rare objects to escape danger just in the knick of time.  Conversations after each week’s episode would often include endless  jokes as to how MacGyver could narrowly escape getting blown from a yacht filled with massive explosives while speeding directly towards a huge rock.  Surprisingly, week after week, he successfully escaped and had great ratings in the process.  

 

You could say MacGyver and the girls from “Facts of Life” have a common theme.  Maybe it is a cheesy theme from the 80’s sitcoms that we can consider in our day to day lives.  Things may feel like they are falling apart.   Our relationships with others may have bumps along the way. We may feel overwhelmed and like we are heading towards that massive rock with things exploding all around us. If this hits close to home to you, repeat over and over the thoughts in verse 2 of Isaiah 43:  “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you:  and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned:  The flames will not set you ablaze.”  We may feel like things aren’t going the way we have planned, but in our reading today let’s keep in mind: God has us.  He has our lives in his hands.  He is so faithful.  He will be there through it all- we have nothing to fear. We have the best ending ahead of us if we continue to stay focused and true to his will for us.

-Emily Moyer