I’m in Job right now. Chapter 38.
“Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me.”
Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.”
We normally base our individual lives on what we have experienced. We don’t take into account the fact that God Himself put in the controls and actuators in the world. We judge people just as they judge us. We accept or battle our circumstances, be they physical conditions or mental, personal or interactive, based on how other people appear to us (not even as the REALLY are, but how they appear). We determine our status, attractiveness, capabilities, our very worth based on what everything around us sets as the standard.
Based on this concept, I can claim that I am the smartest man who ever lived, because I’ve never met anyone who thinks all the things I think about right now in my life. I can claim I am righteous above 99% of the population for I’ve seen everyone around me do evil that I would never consider doing. I can claim there is nothing wrong with me for all the rest are just plain screwed up through and through.
Job 38:2-3, above, refutes this mess. God set the mechanics of creation, including the emotional, spiritual concepts. He is the sole judge of my condition. My salvation is completely dependent on me seeing myself His way and not because I finally understood through experience that I am worthy. Left to my own judgment, I would never have come to Christ. I had to see what He saw and then surrender to that vision.
“Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, that it might take hold of the ends of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it?”
We are raised by the world to know without a doubt that we control our circumstances and can change them and that everything we hate about our state is our fault or someone else’s. Advertisements say “get the new you” and “you deserve it.” Propaganda says “believe in change” and “here’s who you can blame.” Based on this, my weakness, my evil thoughts and my unjust actions are something I can change. I can remove myself from the bad guy next to me and everything will be okay.
Job 38:12-13 above completely argues against this. I do not have the right to blame me or others, nor can I simply drop what galls me and become something else. God runs the show because He wrote the play and only He can change the characters as He sees fit. We comply or fail to comply based on whether we choose to see things as He has told us to see them or not.
There’s a lot of emotion that boils up in every portion of our lives. When we are hurt, emotion, feelings, pile up and tip the scales of our attitudes. When we are weak, the same happens. Just as importantly, when we are strong or are in good situations, our emotions, our feelings, rise with us.
It’s a good thing to have the feelings, for they are God-given. They support our actions with the energy to continue when things are going well and warn us when things are not going so well. But feelings are not the basis for our judgment of condition. Yesterday my little article said a lot that included feelings, and I wanted to address that important point further.
Even our feelings are subject to failure because our world is corrupt. What we think about anything is skewed by our corrupted nature. What I feel about you is potentially all wrong and what you feel about me is potentially just as wrong. We cannot trust our emotions, our thoughts without safeguards.
Here, then, is the safeguard. God has directed us how to approach good events and evil ones. God has told us the value of our own wisdom and philosophy.
Proverbs 18:12
“Before destruction the heart of a man is haughty, and before honor is humility.”
Proverbs 18:17
“The first one to plead his cause seems right, until his neighbor comes and examines him.”
Proverbs 19:3
“The foolishness of a man twists his way, and his heart frets against the Lord.”
Proverbs 19:21
“There are many plans in a man’s heart, nevertheless, the Lord’s counsel — that will stand.”
We don’t work on our own judgment. We can’t. But we do anyway. This is why, many times, we need to shut up and take the Word for its word. When God tells us that this is the way to do it, we must make the conscious decision to do just what He says and how, regardless of our own feelings about the subject.
When we fail, we take God’s opinion of the thing, not our own. When we hate ourselves, we take up God’s position on our plight. Yes, that seems impossible in almost every case, but it must be done. We must, We Must, put ourselves to the side and choose to act as He would have us, as much as we do not want to.
NOTE: By now, I believe I may appear exceedingly pretentious and high-and-mighty in my message. In the back of my mind, that is what I’m feeling as well. But I have consciously chosen to deny this pile of garbage sequence of feelings, because I have my Bible right in front of me and I am confident that I am coming from the viewpoint of the Lord and not of my own opinion.
Look at this verse:
Proverbs 20:22
“Do not say, ‘I will recompense evil’; wait for the Lord, and He will save you.”
We do not take action on our own judgment. We take action on the Lord’s direction. We wait for Him in all things. We must, when faced with our own feelings, stop ourselves and consider what God has prescribed as proper view of the circumstances.
Many times those choices aren’t easy. Many times we just can’t seem to bring ourselves to be emotionally attached to these Godly choices. We can’t feel the motivation to pursue them. That’s sin, still, putting out the final effort to keep us from turning from the old man. We must, many times over, simply do that which we must do, regardless of how we feel about it.
Trust Him that through our cooperation with His viewpoint that He will bless us with the strength to comply and eventually even the understanding of His ways.
This, I believe, is the root of good works. We rarely do good works out of a genuine desire that matches God’s desire. We do them because we expect reward of some sort. Better that we perform good works simply because our Master has told us to do so and trust that our reward (the only one that counts) is a closer walk with Him.
This applies to our character as much as our deeds. We must unreservedly choose to act as God told us. In truth, we cannot do better, for our corrupted nature prevents us ever being able to comply because it’s natural to do so. We are holy because God declared us holy, not because of any innate ability to be so.
Ephesians 2:8-10
“For by grace have you been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
Our purpose is His purpose. We do not set our own course, and that means our own opinions and convictions, on our own terms, are not valid. He gives and takes away as He sees fit. Our joy and misery are dependent on His point of view.
In other words, we should be joyful when we know His desires are being met. We should be miserable when we know His desires are being resisted.
Here’s what repentance looks like to me, and I hope I will choose, consciously, to repeat this whenever I realize I have overstepped God’s point of view:
Job 42:2-6
“I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.
“You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’
“Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
“Listen, please, and let me speak; You said, ‘I will question you, and you shall answer Me.’
“I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You.
“Therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.”
We pride ourselves on being logical, most of us. There are two routes for logic. One is right.
One is based on perception. “As I see it…”
The other is based on assuming Conception. “As He made it…”
