Praying today that every attack, spell, or curse that was sent to strike and destroy you, be RETURNED to SENDER.
God will encircle you with a spiritual hedge of protection to insulate you from any personal or demonic designs. In the mighty Name of Jesus.
You are covered! Amen!
God will never change. As God was before Creation of the seen from the unseen, God IS Hallelujah 🙌 🙌 🙌
A quick share:
The Book of Job recounts the story of a righteous man, Job, who suffers immensely despite his piety. Satan challenges God, claiming Job is only faithful because of his blessings. God allows Satan to test Job by taking away his wealth, family, and eventually, his health. Job, though heartbroken, remains steadfast in his faith, even when his friends offer unhelpful counsel. Ultimately, God reveals his power and wisdom to Job, who then acknowledges his own limitations and expresses his faith in God’s goodness.
Key Events and Themes:
- Prologue: Job is a wealthy and righteous man with a large family.
- The Challenge: Satan challenges God, claiming Job’s faith is based on his blessings.
- Suffering: God allows Satan to inflict suffering on Job, including the loss of his family and wealth, and a painful disease.
- Dialogue with Friends: Job’s friends attempt to offer comfort and understanding, but their advice is often unhelpful.
- God’s Intervention: God appears to Job and reveals His power and wisdom, showing Job the vastness of the world and the mysteries of His ways.
- Job’s Response: Job acknowledges his limitations and expresses faith in God’s goodness, even in the face of suffering.
- Epilogue: Job’s faith is rewarded, and he is restored to health and prosperity.
Themes and Messages:
- The problem of suffering: The book explores why good people suffer and how to cope with injustice and pain.
- Trust in God: Job’s unwavering faith in God, even in the face of suffering, is a central theme.
- The limits of human understanding: The book highlights the limitations of human knowledge and the vastness of God’s wisdom.
- God’s sovereignty: Despite suffering, the book emphasizes God’s ultimate power and control over all things.
- The value of lament: Job’s expressions of grief and anger are seen as a healthy way to process suffering.
And we read:
The book of Job is Narrative History. Its author is unknown yet it is possible that Job himself wrote it. It is possible that Job is the oldest of any book of the Bible written approximately 2100-1800 B.C. Key personalities of this book include Job, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, Zophar the Naamathite, and Elihu the Buzite.
In Job, we see a man who God allows to be directly attacked by Satan. He is an example of faithfulness as he loses everything important to him yet remains faithful to God. Its purpose is to illustrate God’s sovereignty and faithfulness during a time of great suffering.
• In chapters 1-3, God tests Job’s faithfulness through allowing Satan to attack him. God told Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power, only do not put forth your hand on him” (1:12). Through Job’s trials, all is lost including his health, his wife even tells him to curse God and commit suicide, but he remains strong and faithful, “Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God.” (1:22).
• From chapters 4-37, Job’s friends give him plenty of bad advice, in rounds of discussion. They mistakenly blame his sufferings on his personal sins rather than God testing and growing Job. One of them was half-correct in that God wanted to humble him, but this was only a part of God’s test.
• In chapters 38-42, God speaks to Job and restores him. God knows that Job has received incorrect guidance from his friends, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” God fittingly declares that humans do not know everything. Then He humbles Job by asking a series of questions that could never be answered by anyone other than Almighty God; for example, “Have you understood the expanse of the earth? Tell Me, if you know all this”. God then brings him to an understanding that believers don’t always know what God is doing in their lives.
In the end, Job answers God by saying, “I have declared that which I did not understand”. God then blessed Job with twice as much as he had before his trials began.
I share that we are deeply/intimately Known by our Creator – our beginnings and our end!
It signifies that God, as the Creator, possesses a profound and personal knowledge of each individual, including their inner thoughts, feelings, and potential. This knowledge is not just an intellectual awareness, but a deep, intimate understanding that extends beyond the surface.
Here’s a more detailed look at this concept:
- God’s Perfect Knowledge: God is seen as having a perfect and complete understanding of everything, including the deepest aspects of human nature. This knowledge is not a result of observation or information gathering, but rather a direct and inherent understanding of creation.
- Psalm 139: This Psalm is a powerful expression of God’s intimate knowledge. It highlights that God knows us even before we are born, knows our thoughts and emotions, and understands our inner being.
- Spiritual Intimacy: The concept of being “intimately known” by God is closely linked to the idea of spiritual intimacy, which involves a close and personal relationship with God. This intimacy allows for a deeper understanding and connection with God’s will and purpose.
- The Seed of Intimacy with God: This blog post from Intimaseed emphasizes that God made us to be close to Him and that our innate desire to love and be loved can only be wholly fulfilled in Him. It suggests that our spirit will be longing for something unattainable when we are far from Him.
- Seeking Intimacy: While God’s knowledge of us is a given, the text suggests that we can actively seek to know God more deeply through prayer, scripture study, and fellowship with other believers. This process of seeking intimacy can lead to a deeper understanding of God’s character and His plan for our lives.
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.