| “There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed [hated] evil” (Job 1:1). |
| The book of Job is another somewhat difficult book for young people to read. Most of the book is taken up with how Job was allowed to become very sick with boils all over his body, and how his three friends came and visited him. His friends really wanted to help, but they assumed that Job was a bad man, and that God had allowed this sickness to punish him. This was not true, as we see from our verse for today. Job was a very good man, but his trouble was that he thought quite highly of himself, and did not realize that any goodness in him was only because of the grace of God. It was not because of his own efforts. |
| However, Job had something to learn, and after Job’s friends had finished saying quite a bit, a younger man named Elihu comes into the picture, and he said the right thing to Job. Eventually Job learned what the Lord wanted to teach him, and his friends learned an important lesson too. They learned not to make wrong accusations when they really did not understand at all what God was doing. |
| You and I can learn much from Job’s experience. Even as Christians, we can think we are behaving rather well, instead of realizing that it is only because we have a new life in Christ that we are able to live to please the Lord. Job also had to learn that any goodness that was in him was because of the grace of God, and not because he was naturally a good man. Being proud of our goodness is wrong, for any goodness in us comes from God. |
| Job is one of the oldest books in the Bible, and we are not even totally sure who wrote it. Job probably lived sometime after the flood, perhaps about the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We do not know much about his family background, nor do we hear anything of him later in the Bible, except a brief comment about this patience in James 5:11. However, the lesson that Job’s life teaches us is most important, so do not forget to read the book of Job. |
