Having completed our journey through Job’s life and experience, I want to share some personal responses out of my study of Job. These are important lessons I have learned. I am not necessarily implying that they will be the lessons that you will learn. It is up to you to apply the Scriptures to your own life. But they are valuable to me—and hopefully will be helpful to you as well.
LEARN TO TRUST
One of the primary lessons I have learned from Job is that we can never understand all of God’s dealings with us or anyone else. Therefore, do not get discouraged if matters are not clear to you. You may not need to understand everything. What you must do is to trust. Proverbs tells us, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5).
Ultimately, the real basis for most of our problems is mistrust of the goodness of God. Therefore, when we encounter the difficulties of life, we must begin with the understanding that much of God and His ways are beyond our finding out. We must first realize that trust, not understanding, is the only secure basis of our walk with the Lord. Do not feel you must understand everything. You must trust in God’s goodness.
GOD MAINTAINS SOVEREIGNTY
The second lesson Job teaches me is that God never surrenders His sovereignty. The word sovereignty has more or less dropped out of our Christian vocabulary, but it is a very important word. My definition of sovereignty is this: God does what He wants, when He wants, the way He wants, and He asks no one’s permission. We must get adjusted to that reality in our thinking. We cannot tell God how to manage His universe or how He should manage our own lives.
God never allows Himself to be put in a little box of religious principles. I have seen people over the years try to put God in a box. They declare that God is a certain way, that you must follow these principles, and that you must live your life in a particular manner. Contrary to expectations, God invariably pops up somewhere else outside their box. Therefore, do not bother to try and put everything into a neat little package. It is a waste of time.
Legalism
Religious rules and principles are some of the biggest barriers to understanding God. There must be certain rules in the church because we have to conduct ourselves in a certain way. Otherwise, there would be total confusion. But remember that following the rules does not make us righteous. This is important because if another group follows rules that are different from ours, it does not mean they are less righteous than we are.
If our righteousness depends on following rules and we are following the right rules, then nobody else can be righteous. The root problem is legalism, which is building your faith on keeping a set of rules or living by particular principles. Rules and principles never change people’s hearts.
Politics
When we pray for the nation, it is good to pray for good laws. But do not imagine that good laws are going to change people. Laws can restrain evil but they cannot produce good people. I believe many Christians are praying for the government to do the church’s job. It is not the government’s job to make people righteous. It is our job—and people are not made righteous by rules and laws. If we changed all the bad laws of a nation tomorrow, it still would not change the people.
My simple summation of the problems of any nation is this: There are a lot more bad people than good people. Furthermore, the bad people are getting worse and worse. The solution is not to make laws. The only solution will be for something to change bad people into good people quickly.
What is that solution? It is the gospel of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. So let’s not spend too much time praying for the government to make the right laws. Let’s rather focus on praying for the Gospel to be preached.
Abortion
I have a strong feeling about this because of my sympathies for the pro-life movement. I believe that abortion is murder and I do not condone it. However, I do not believe the church is right to make enemies of the people who practice abortion. We are to love them and win them to the Lord—not to make war on them. Jesus said, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved” (John 3:17). The ministry of condemnation is the Old Covenant. The New Covenant is a ministry of righteousness.
Jesus did not come into the world to impute peoples’ sins to them. The world has built up an absolute wall of hatred against us because we have insisted upon telling people how bad they are. Jesus never did that. The only people He ever condemned were the religious people—and they were the only people who made problems for Him. It is the same situation today. I have become deeply concerned about this issue because I believe much prayer power is being wasted. I believe people are working feverishly to get something to happen that, if it happened, would not solve the problem. The Gospel is the only real solution.
GOD TREATS US AS INDIVIDUALS
Another wonderful lesson from Job that I have also come to understand is that God deals with you and me as individuals. He does not have one blueprint for everybody. He has a specific, detailed plan for every life, including yours and mine, because we are all different. This means that it is foolish to compare ourselves with other Christians, as Paul tells us in Second Corinthians 10:12:
For we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with those who commend themselves. But they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.
It is foolish to measure yourself by other Christians. You cannot say, “God did this for so and so; therefore, God will do this for me.” The fact that God did something for Brother George or Sister Mary is no reason to believe that He will do the same thing for you. The reason is because God’s will for you may be entirely different. You must find out God’s will in each matter for you as an individual.
God has a special, unique purpose for each person’s life. This is very clearly illustrated by an incident at the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry after His resurrection. In John 21, Jesus told Peter what was going to happen to him toward the end of his life. Then Peter, seeing John walking close by, said, “But Lord, what about this man?” (John 21:21). What was Jesus’ response to Peter? “If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? You follow Me” (John 21:22). In other words, it is not your business, Peter.
We are not to base our expectations on what God has done in somebody else’s life. Why? Because God has a special purpose for you and it is something exciting, specially tailored to you. God tailors His plans individually. He does not mass-produce suits or dresses—every one is made to a measure of its own.
GOD’S PURPOSES WILL BE FULFILLED
Another wonderful lesson from the story of Job is that God is tireless in pursuing His purposes. He will relentlessly follow the plan He has for your life. At any point you can say, “Stop, God, I don’t want any more!” In response to that cry, He will back off. But for you to ask Him to do so would be very foolish.
God had a special plan for Job. He saw a unique man out of whom He could make something He could not make out of anybody else on earth. His plan necessitated the sacrifice of all Job’s livestock, some of his servants, and all ten of his children. All of this sacrifice was for one purpose—that God might get His way in the life of Job. That is a staggering thought! In other words, God will stop at nothing to get the results He wants in your life.
As I said, you can ask Him to stop. It is possible that He may leave you alone. But that would be the biggest disaster that could ever happen to you. We cannot tell God how to deal with us. We cannot set the conditions on which God must operate. He is sovereign and He does not need us to tell Him how to manage our lives and our destiny in Him.
In the next chapter, we will see the eternal perspective for the lessons of Job and the lessons of our lives.