Prayer: Father, may I not be hasty in giving rebuke to a brother or a friend. In brokenness, words are spoken which do not represent the true heart. Help me to be discerning in words of comfort and care. Amen.
Reading: Job 18 key: 21
21 Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked;
such is the place of one who does not know God.”
Attention: Have you ever received a rebuke from a friend? How did it feel? If you are like me, it did not feel good. I would suppose that my age group has been both the rebuker and the rebuked. We have experienced both sides of the fence. There is a right and appropriate time to rebuke and there are better times to receive rebuke. While one is overwhelmed with grief, pain, and suffering, is not the optimum time be rebuked.
What we observe from Job’s life is that his friends do not know Job’s heart. From his friends’ perspective, calamity, pain, suffering, only comes when one is caught up in sin, and where there is smoke, there is fire as the cliché’ goes. Is that a true statement? No, but sadly many of us embrace this concept. Do only bad things happen to bad or sinful people?
Scripture gives us some insight into God’s perspective, “He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45b). Good things and bad things happen to both.
So, the rebuke which Bildad brings to Job accuses him of not knowing God (vs. 21). Remember, in the first two chapters we are told the character of Job, “There is no one like him on the earth—a blameless and upright man, who fears God and spurns evil.” Perhaps, his friends were the ones who did not know God.
Let’s be cautious about rebuking someone when we do not know their heart, when it is God who only knows man’s heart.
Action: My God given role is to comfort, console, and encourage someone who is grieving and in pain.
Yield: When I am looking beyond myself, I am honoring God.
Engaged: I am engaged with God in being His hands and feet when I go to the grieving and sorrowful.
Relationship: Compassion and care come flow from a relationship with the Holy.
Prayer: Father, help me to be sensitive to the needs of friends. May I cross paths with those whom you want me to minister too.
Memory Verse: Psalms 139: 13-17
13 For You have created my conscience.
You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise You, for I am awesomely, wonderfully made!
Wonderful are Your works—
and my soul knows that very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from You
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw me when I was unformed,
and in Your book were written the days that were formed—
when not one of them had come to be.
17 How precious are Your thoughts, O God!
How great is the sum of them!
Music Video: Tasha Cobbs Leonard—You Know My Name
Remember, “Abide in Yeshua, today!”