Wednesday, January 15, 2025

Your Relief Is In Jesus Christ

Job chapter 27 1-5


  Job continued his speech.

This is my promise:   I promise to God, because he lives. He is still my God, although he has not been fair to me. And he is my provider, although he has caused me to suffer.   My promise will last for my whole life. My promise will continue while God allows me to breathe.  I shall always speak the truth. I promise not to lie.

     

 My friends, I could never agree with your speeches. I must prove that I am innocent. And I will continue until I die.  I have chosen to do the right things. And I will continue to do the right things. For my whole life, my conscience will not upset me.




Have you ever done something so difficult that you were not sure that you would accomplish your goal? How did you feel when you finished it? Were you happy or surprised when you realized that everything was done and that you were able to finish what you started? 


God is never surprised about the outcomes of His work. He always knows ahead of time what the outcome will be, and that is why He is able to succeed in everything that He does, but we cannot see every outcome in every situation. We must have faith that God knows what He is doing  when He asks us to do things that seem impossible or even foolish to us. God has no limitations, so we must never try to set our own limitations upon The Lord Jesus Christ and upon His word.



Job was quite certain that He was innocent of all the charges that his friends were speaking against him, and he had no way of proving his innocence to them. He realised that he had to depend upon the Lord because he knew that God was the only one who knew the truth.



He never gave up on God, because he knew that God would never give up on him. It is so easy to lose your faith when you focus upon the problem and not upon the solution. You may have a serious problem, and everyone around you may give you their view of why you are suffering, but the Lord will never put you in a situation that you cannot handle.



If the Lord allows suffering in your life, that is when you must keep praying  and stand firmly upon  His word. God has provided for all of your needs, but you must be willing to let Him do what you cannot do; His love, grace and mercy will be enough to help you survive…


Wednesday, January 8, 2025

Prayer From a Deep Place

Job Chapter 17: 1-2,6-7


My spirit suffers. My life is short. Soon, I must die.  Everybody insults me. And I watch their cruel actions.

 When people curse, they use my name. They spit at me. (That is, they splash me with water from their mouths.)  My eyes are weak because of my tears. My whole body seems as weak as a shadow...



 Going through a time of suffering does not mean that you are being punished because you did something that was bad. God allows suffering into our lives for a reason, and the reasons are usually not the same for everyone and in every situation. Your response to hardship will never be the same as my response to my own issues. You can ask the Lord why these things are happening to you and if there is a purpose for your suffering.


In the scriptures, Job was a good and faithful servant, He loved God and saw God as his friend. God blessed Job so much that He gave Job wealth and a huge family,  but it seems that he was the only one in his family that believed in God with all of his heart.


Job tried to cover his family with prayer and with sacrifices to God  on their behalf to cover their sins. Job’s careful devotion to God and his family made him a target by the devil. Job lost everything in a blink of an eye, and he suffered a lot because satan wanted to destroy him.  The Lord did not allow the devil to take his life,  but why did God allow the devil to do these things to Job?


You are right now asking, why God, why? You lost someone, or perhaps you lost a business. You are ill, and the doctors don’t know if they can save you. Your family abandoned you or you never had anyone truly love you. Are you rich or poor? It doesn’t matter, because pain and suffering comes to everyone’s door; evil never discriminates when it decides to wreak havoc upon the lives of all the people in this world.

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Many people live in a state of fear and despair in their hearts, yet they would never let you know what is truly going on in their lives. They pretend to be just fine, but if they were brave enough to confess what they are going through, they would tell you that money and power does nothing to calm the confusion and the anxiety that they live with every single day…



God allowed the devil to do what he did to Job  to demonstrate that Job would never turn away from the Lord. He wanted to show the devil that Job’s devotion to him was not based upon wealth or power. Job was a genuine son of God. When you believe in Jesus Christ, you show the world that you care about what God cares about, and that you are willing to  live your life for Him.



Living for God means that we will also be targeted by the devil and his demons, because of their hatred of the people of God. Really, no one is exempt from being targeted, believers and unbelievers alike. Those who believe only in themselves may not want to believe in God or the devil, but when trouble comes into their lives, they find out very quickly that they must change their worldview, or find a way outside of the grace and the compassion of the Lord to cope with their suffering and anxiety.




Why are you suffering? I don’t know, but I do know that the Lord is waiting for you to come to Him to find a solution to your problems. He wants you to come to Him sincerely, in faith and with no ulterior motives; just surrender your pain, your needs, and your heart to Jesus. If you want to know the Lord Jesus for yourself, this is the first step to victory in your life and reconciliation with the Lord.



Prayer of Salvation or Restoration:


Lord Jesus, I can't go on like this anymore. please help me, I surrender my heart and my life to you. please come into my life and restore my hope, my health, and my faith in you. I repent from my past ways, and give my life to you. Thank you Jesus for restoring my life and healing my soul....AMEN