Thursday Devotional - All-Knowing God and Bungled Bildad (8/8/24)

Here comes Job’s second friend, Bildad! He doesn’t start out as encouraging as Eliphaz, Job’s first friend to speak (back in chapter 4). He’s just as ignorant as Eliphaz, though, and goes even further in claiming to know what God will and won’t do! 

Job 8:1-7   Then Bildad the Shuhite replied:

² “How long will you say such things?
    Your words are a blustering wind.
³ Does God pervert justice?
    Does the Almighty pervert what is right?
⁴ When your children sinned against him,
    he gave them over to the penalty of their sin.
⁵ But if you will seek God earnestly
    and plead with the Almighty,
⁶ if you are pure and upright,
    even now he will rouse himself on your behalf
    and restore you to your prosperous state.
⁷ Your beginnings will seem humble,
    so prosperous will your future be.

Bildad was correct that God doesn’t pervert justice. However, he was incorrect to assume that all suffering is a direct result of a person’s sin. He also preached a prosperity gospel – that if Job was truly upright, then God would lavish prosperity on him.

Only God is all-knowing. We can’t speak for Him. We can speak about Him. We can share about the truths from His Word and His unchanging attributes. God doesn’t need us to defend Him. He can defend Himself. He does desire us to declare Him.

I don’t want to be a bungled mess, like Bildad, but a faithful proclaimer of God’s truths.

Lord, help us not try to speak for you, but to point others to earnestly seek you for your unique purposes for them.

Prosperity and Hope

This is what the Lord says: “You will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again.   For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.   In those days when you pray, I will listen.   If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.  I will be found by you,” says the Lord. “I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes. I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you and will bring you home again to your own land.”  Jeremiah 29:10-14

One of the great debates for the sanity of the church is the idea of the prosperity gospel.  To simply it, let’s talk about Joel Osteen.  Many agree with Joel’s belief that if you trust in God you will prosper beyond what you see today.  Others feel that life is not about prosperity.  It’s about spiritual growth, and growth as any child knows can be painful.  Now to be clear, I fall in the latter ‘spiritual growth’ camp, but many of us in this camp are missing a very significant point about what Joel Osteen has tapped into.  And that is quite simply the word ‘Hope.’

As Christians, we are to always live with the hope in Jesus Christ.  When reading Jeremiah 29:11, many people conclude that it is all about the great things God has planned for them.  Kind of like the prosperity Gospel, right?  But you see when you read the entire context, you realize this is not about some great prosperous unknown.  This about knowing what God has already promised!  These verses speak to a people who have been exiled from their homeland and are enslaved in Babylon.  They are in a situation where they have to feel that they are to never find home or have anything of their own.  But God tells them to not be troubled or dismayed.  He has not forgotten them or His promise to them. They may have to wait a generation, but they will be free and prosperous again.  Thus, they are to live their lives for God with the hope their hearts and minds are connected with Him.  Now if you were middle aged back then, this had to be somewhat discouraging. However if they were to remain faithful, you would rest easy with hope knowing that the future was indeed bright.

Hope is about patience.  Hope is about trust.  Hope is about knowing something that will come to flourish in the face of all signs that say otherwise.  Our hope in Jesus Christ is not for our salvation.  It is rather that we are living a life for Him that when the day is done, we can say in the words of 2 Timothy 4:7, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful.”  How hopeful are you in God’s promises to you?  How can you find hope in times of despair?  My prayer is that we prosper through good times and bad realizing that we always have hope through Jesus Christ.  Amen.