Job part 2

Intro

Losing it all and our relationship with God

does God love you and care for you if he would allow bad things to happen to you?

is our relationship with God something we can measure?

Property and Children

Satan issues a challenge to God and God agrees

on a day when Job’s family is gathered together, what would normally have been a great day

everything that Job has made for himself, everything that he would call a blessing that surrounds him is taken

all at once a servant from every place comes to tell him that they are the sole survivor

the wrath from the gods is poured out on Job and his family and only he and his wife and a few servants remain

in spite of all of this, Job blesses God, calls him by name and refuses to say anything against him

Job will be pushed even further, but through it all, what he has or does not have, is of no consequence to Job’s faith

A Second Challenge

Satan comes before God again and they have the same conversation as before

this time Satan contends that if only his health and well being are taken away, he will turn from following God

he didn’t take away EVERYTHING just yet and surely when he is weak and alone he will break the relationship he has kept so far and despite all the odds

A Pitiful Party

so Satan goes and does as he has said before God

Job now not only has no possessions and little family left

but he is weak and in pain as well

Job gives a truth that will be said by Jesus later on in the sermon on the mount

good and evil, blessing and curse, fortune and misfortune, are all things that come to pass in our lives regardless of our relationship with God or lack there of

at least in the physical sense

Application

a weak faith says that if I have none of the things left that I had been blessed with in life then I might as well die

that there can be no purpose for me and my relationship with God must be horrible

these are the things that Job and his “friends” will spend the rest of the book debating

you and I ought to understand the bigger picture here from just this bit

if you really have faith and/or a relationship with God, you will recognize that the real blessing God gives is not a physical or mortal thing

it is not something measured here on this earth or conjectured like our ideals of success and fortune

real blessing is eternal life and good that comes from me giving those things up for others

not the other way around