Yesterday, we considered God’s response to Job’s “demand” for an audience with the Almighty. The four chapters that record God’s response (38-42) include 63 questions based on the NASV. That suggests that God was wanting to know what Job knew more than He was interested in conforming to Job’s expectations.

    Here I would like for us to meditate on Job’s response and ours, because forming God after our own image is idolatry.

OUR RESPONSE & JOB’S RESPONSE:

    After this barrage of questions from God that illustrate that mankind is simply not in the same category as the God of heaven, in 40:4-5, we have an initial response of Job. Before we try to question God and explain to God what He ought to have done differently or how He ought to do this or that, we would be wiser and show more humility if we were to respond more like Job. “I am insignificant. Once I have spoken. I will add nothing more.”

    A second response to God by Job is in 42:3-6. Our danger today, maybe is not to worship idols, but to have the idea that we know how God ought to do this or that. We are also faced with the danger of trying to force God, to manipulate God, into being the “God” that we think He ought to be. 

    God is not accountable to us. We cannot put Him under a microscope for our approval. The book of Job teaches us that we can trust God because He loves us. He did not lash out at Job the moment Job began expressing his doubts. Rather, God was graciously patient with Job. Did God ever explain to Job that it was, in fact, Satan who was persecuting Job? No, as far as we know, God never explains to Job what happened in chapters 1-2. Maybe Job himself wrote those chapters; maybe he did not. But you and I have them. You and I have the whole story.

    But we do not just have the whole story of Job. We have the whole story of the Bible which includes the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ for our sins and for our salvation. We cannot choose what we like and what we do not like about the nature of God. If we are doing that, then we are making a god after our own image. 

    God created us to serve Him. He created us to worship Him and be in His presence throughout all eternity. The only way we can know God and the only way we can know what God expects out of us is the word that the Holy Spirit gave to us. That’s why it is so important to walk with Christ with His Word in our hands and in our hearts.

    Let us strive to be people who would serve God for nothing, grateful to be in a relationship with Him, Who is so worthy.

–Paul Holland