GOOD AND EVIL

DAY 248
FAITH FILE: JOB
SCRIPTURES: JOB 2:4-10

Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!” But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
JOB 2:9-10

I wish our faith was one where we never had to go through any problem whatsoever. That the moment we give our life to Christ, we will never have a problem or challenge. Our lives will be smooth sailing, wonderful, and amazing, with no single sad or bad day. Whatever you need just drops on your laps. You don’t have to work hard, you’re just living life on cloud nine. I wish that’s how our faith was but that’s not how it is. The fact that we are in Christ does not mean we’re not going to go through challenges like people who are not in Christ. Why? Because it would be manipulative if God just gave us every single thing we want. There will be no way for our love for Him to be genuine. We would be puppets controlled by the strings of His goodness.

God does not want us to love Him because of what He does for us. Are there benefits to being in Christ? Yes. The chief of which is eternal life, the privilege to know the One true God. God gave us the gift of choice so that we are not compelled to love Him, we get to decide and to make sure the choice is fair, He evens the playing field by putting natural laws that are no respecter of persons. So we can come to truly accept His love.

You Choose

The thing with true love is that it comes with the good and bad mixed together. Ask anybody who is married, they will tell you that you don’t get to edit the parts you don’t like. Choosing to marry that person means you choose to accept the good with the bad. Even though they are wonderful and romantic, you’re going to have to deal with the part of them that may not share your hubby. They can be very patient, listening, and understanding, but you might have to deal with the part that’s a little bit unwilling to help you out in the kitchen. The whole package is what we take, We don’t pick and choose. When you fall in love with God, it’s the whole package too.

Job puts it this way, “Can we accept good from God and not evil?” Jesus said, “In this world, we will have tribulation but to be of good cheer.” So when those situations come where the night is tough, you don’t have things you want, you’re praying but God has not yet answered. That’s when the love is tested. Are you now going to walk away because you were hoping that God was going to be your genie? Or are you going to stay loving Him because you know that He deserves it and you trust His nature? He’s not at your beck and call, but He still deserves your devotion. Because that’s what love is.

That’s what commitment is. The day you accepted Him as lord, you committed your life to the one that first loved you enough to die for you, even though you had nothing to offer Him. You are an expression of His love and a reflection of His glory.

Love Check

Beloved, I hope that your love for God is more than the things that you can get. I hope that when things hit the fan, when everything goes haywire and uncontrollable, your love can stand. Because if your love God is only for material things, you are no different than an unbeliever. This eternal life we have been called to is that we may know God, not that we may buy more cars. It’s that we may love Him, not that we may build a new house. That we may show forth His glory, not that we may have more children. All of these are part of life, but it’s not the primary thing.

So ask yourself, if I get everything that I need now, will I still love God? Or is God just my ATM machine? Is my relationship with God just transactional? That will tell you where you’re going to fall when everything begins to go perfectly for you. Maybe that’s why you have not gotten that answer yet, because if you did, you’re going to walk away from the Lord and you wouldn’t need Him anymore. And the Bible says, only a fool says in His heart that there is no God. Don’t allow the choice that God has given you to be used against yourself. Because no matter what you choose, you can never be against God.

Shalom.