The Faith of Job and Our Faith

Job 13:15a - Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.

In this statement, Job was expressing that he really wasn’t sure that the Lord would relieve his suffering and that, as a matter of fact, He may very well lose his life in the process. But Job says, even if this kills him, he won’t lose faith in the Lord.

Job had a relentless trust in the benevolence and righteousness of God. He trusted the love of the Father. Even if the difficulty God was allowing ended up crushing Job, he would go to his grave still believing that the Lord’s will was best and that He was to be trusted with Job’s very life. Job also was secure in His relationship with the Lord; that he was in right standing.

Recorded earlier in the book of Job, when Job’s wife encouraged him to simply “curse God and die” in light of the level of pain and loss he was enduring, Job said that he would not dare to gladly receive the blessing of the Lord but resent Him for the trouble that He allowed (see 2:10). Job was truly a “ride or die” brother!

How about you? Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve repeatedly looked at this matter of how we handle trials. Some of you have been through trials as horrendous as Job’s. Did you maintain your trust? When the next big one comes, will you dig your heels in and not waiver? Now, I think it would be irresponsible to just leave it there and not acknowledge that trusting can be hard or seemingly impossible - especially when we are in the midst of deep turmoil and when circumstances look bleak. But we know that we are to live by faith; not by sight. It is in just these very times that it is most important to hold on to God’s promises. His word is a lifeline to us and He is faithful to His word. He is with us in our trials and He has wonderful plans for our life – plans to prosper us and not to harm us. When it’s hard to see how our circumstances could turn out for our good is when we have to be especially diligent to trust in and lean on God.

So I encourage you, like I did back when we talked about having grit – DIG IN! God is our hope in the midst of these troubles. Even though you may be battle-weary, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power!