When The Lord Turned The Captivity Of Job

In the book of Job, Satan is allowed to sift this man of God and everything is taken from him: his children, his health, his affluence, his reputation, nearly EVERYTHING. (See Job 1:1, 6-12, 20-22)
Despite what looks like an attack of divine wrath upon him for no apparent justification, Job maintains his faith and trust in God and belief that God cannot be punishing him for any known sin he has committed. 

 In the beginning of the book, Job offers sacrifices for his children, intercedes and prays to God on their behalf. (*See Job 1:5)

The Bible suggests that Job’s prayers are more to prevent something evil from happening. After his crisis he laments, “What I always feared has happened to me. What I dreaded has come true.” Job 3:25 NLT. 

After everything is taken from Job, he doesn’t curse God, but he is thrown into an abyss of self pity and depression, focusing on his troubles and wishing only for death.

“At last Job spoke, and he cursed the day of his birth. “Let the day of my birth be erased, and the night I was conceived. Let that day be turned to darkness… Job 3:1 NLT (*see Job 3:1, 3-6)

Then his friends come by to comfort him. However, when they hear him talking so negatively they begin to assault his integrity, though they have no justification for condemning him other than the fact that he has been mercilessly persecuted through myriad tribulations.

They are judging him by his misfortunes adding to them by heaping sorrow upon sorrow.
Like Job, we cannot understand our trials sometimes for they seem so unfair. 

Why should we be afflicted when others are not?  We may wonder if God plays favorites. 
Yet the Bible reveals “For God does not show favoritism.” Romans 2:11 NLT

After studying God’s Word we gain a better understanding of suffering, how God views pain and affliction, and the purpose of trials. 
We will never have all the answers this side of eternity, “

Some people may go through severe trials as Job did, and they come through the long dark tunnel emerging into a broad new path. 

God rewards them with a wonderful new life and all their former misery seems to vanish away in a beautifully restored life through His measureless mercy and grace.

And then there are others who seem to be destined to suffer through serial trials and misfortunes throughout their lives. 

Their Divine Coach gives them short reprieves to sit on the bench for a rest from their suffering every so often, but then He sends them back into the Divine Game as First Stringers, to combat their spiritual Opponent. 

This seemed to be what the Apostle Paul experienced as did many of the other apostles.

 

We are all of us in this war together, but some souls God seems to use to fight in the trenches facing the opposition more frequently and getting more battle wounded because of this. 

Because of his special revelations Paul wrote that he was given a painful thorn to bear:

“So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud. Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. 

Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” 

So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 NLT

Some may seem never to suffer. However, to everything there is a season, and a time and purpose to everything under the heavens. 

Also, some types of suffering go unseen, for appearances are deceiving. Only God knows all hearts. 

What today is, tomorrow may not be. (See Ecclesiastes 3:1)

 “If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall.” 1 Corinthians 10:12 NLT

God knows what the limits of each person are and He never gives us more than we can tolerate. (See 1 Corinthians 10: 13)

The Lord tests each of us according to His Word to see if our faith is genuine. 

“So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. 

These trials will show that your faith is genuine.

 It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. 

So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.” 1 Peter 1:6-7 NLT

God’s Word says that our Heavenly Father chastises each one of His children to make us holy.

“As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. 

Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father? If God doesn’t discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really his children at all. 

Since we respected our earthly fathers who disciplined us, shouldn’t we submit even more to the discipline of the Father of our spirits, and live forever? 

For our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how. 

But God’s discipline is always good for us, so that we might share in his holiness. 

No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! 

But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.” Hebrews 12:7-11 NLT

As we glean from studying the Book of Job, it is never wise to judge people or God by their or our own afflictions.

 “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,

 Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? “Job.38.1, Job.38.2

 Romans 8:28 reveals that God is working all things together for good to those who love Him. 

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 admonishes us to pray without ceasing, rejoice always and to give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. 

After the Lord appeared to Job and counseled him, Job prayed to God and worshiped Him, repenting for his misunderstanding of God:

“I had heard of You [only] by the hearing of the ear, but now my [spiritual] eye sees You. Therefore I loathe [my words] and abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Job 42:5-6 AMPC

Ultimately God was angry with Job’s friends who had condemned Job unfairly.

He told them to go have Job pray for them and bring sacrifices for him to offer to the Lord on their behalf.

After Job prayed for them, the Bible says,  “And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends…”

God rewarded Job and blessed him with more than he’d started out with. 

The book of Job teaches us that prayer sets us free from bitterness and releases God’s love in our hearts so that He can bless lives through us. 

God will restore us once we throw off the shackles of unforgiveness, which leads to an unhealthy focus on the self, breeding self pity and resentment, the bitter roots of depression,  making our attitudes negative, hopeless, and dark. 

Prayer and Forgiveness open the door to God’s love and light in our hearts and sets us free to experience God’s healing mercy and grace. 

Prayer

Heavenly Father, thank You for Thy immeasurable love and mercy towards each of us. When we suffer through trials help us to understand that You do love us, that You have not forsaken us and never will, and that You suffer with us in our pain through Christ who’s Spirit dwells in us. Thank You for Thy Word that assures us of these truths; bless and encourage all who are suffering through trials and fill them with rivers of Thy peace and strength to make it through, in Jesus’ name, amen.

The Lord Will Wash Away All Our Tears Someday © (p) 2022, Meditations For The Journey, Keyboard Instrumentals, by Suzanne Davis Harden, through the Indwelling Risen Lord Jesus Christ, Inspired by The Holy Spirit, To The Glory of God The Father, In Jesus’ Name, Amen. 

All Rights Reserved. 

 

You Are God's Masterpiece

You are God's Masterpiece,

Cherished, beloved,

By our God who dwells

In Heaven above;

Upon His heart

You're forever engraved,

He died on the cross

Your soul to save.

All of our sins

He died to forgive;

He rejects no one

Who comes to Him.

He loves each soul

No matter their sins

No past, no shame

Repulses Him.

His love like a river

Flows evermore

And carries us home

To eternity's shores.


"You Are God's Masterpiece"

© 2015 Suzanne Davis Harden All Rights Reserved

Artist: Bougereau ~Madonna with Christ Child

 Prayer

Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for loving us so much that You sent Your only Son Jesus Christ to earth to be born as a helpless baby, to grow up as a man, to suffer and die a cruel death on a Roman cross so that our sins could be forgiven and we could have eternal life with You.  

If we ever doubt Your love for us may we see our Lord suffering and dying for our sins on the cross. For this is a picture of the depth of Thy love for each one of us. Help us this Christmas season to understand the reason our Lord Jesus Christ came to earth; to meditate on Thy great immeasurable love for us, and may we love and worship You with our whole heart and soul and mind in return for all You have done for us, in Jesus mighty name. Thank You, Lord. Amen.

 

 Danish Artist: Carl Bloch~ Crucifixion of Christ

Unto The Least Of These "You Are God's Masterpiece" © 2015 Suzanne Davis Harden All Rights Reserved. /Scripture Picture via Pinterest; Art photos, via Google

The Heavenly Servant

"Christ Washing Peter's Feet" by Ford Maddox Brown (19th C British Pre-Raphaelite Artist)

The Heavenly Servant

John 13:1, 3-10 (ERV)

It was almost time for the Jewish Passover festival.

Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go back to the Father. 

Jesus had always loved the people in the world who were his. 

Now was the time he showed them his love the most...

The Father had given Jesus power over everything. 
Jesus knew this. 

He also knew that he had come from God. 
And he knew that he was going back to God. 
So while they were eating, Jesus stood up and took off his robe. He got a towel and wrapped it around his waist. 
Then he poured water into a bowl and began to wash the followers’ feet. 

He dried their feet with the towel that was wrapped around his waist. 

He came to Simon Peter. 

But Peter said to him, “Lord, you should not wash my feet.”

Jesus answered, “You don’t know what I am doing now. 
But later you will understand.” 

Peter said, “No! You will never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered, “If I don’t wash your feet, you are not one of my people.” 

Simon Peter said, “Lord, after you wash my feet, wash my hands and my head too!” 

Jesus said, “After a person has a bath, his whole body is clean. He needs only to wash his feet. And you are clean...” 

In this Scripture passage, Jesus is giving His disciples a powerful visual metaphor of His mission on earth, who He is and why He has come.

The Apostles will not understand the full scope of His mission until after His death on the cross and resurrection though.

"So while they were eating, Jesus stood up and took off his robe." 

Here Jesus is showing that He laid aside His Heavenly Throne temporarily and in the words of St. Paul,  "although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men." (Philippians 2:6-7 NASB)

"(Jesus) got a towel and wrapped it around his waist. Then he poured water into a bowl and began to wash the followers’ feet. He dried their feet with the towel that was wrapped around his waist."

Jesus, their Master and Lord, performed this humble task of washing His disciples feet, a menial chore that normally a slave or common household laborer would have done, in order to graphically demonstrate His mission from the Father. 

He also wants to remind them that He is their example in all things. Whatever He does, they must likewise do. 
Be humble. Love one another. Serve one another. 
Why? Because He is their Lord and has asked them to, just as He is now on His earthly mission because His Father has asked Him to do it. 

You can never have love without obedience in true worship.

Why does Jesus need to clean the disciple's feet? 
Because they are stained with sin. 

Jesus is showing them that His mission is to cleanse people of their sins. 
What would have been the filthiest part of the body in a time when most people walked everywhere over rugged roads and basically wore sandals? 

Jesus came to cleanse the filthiest part of each of us---our hearts. 

Matthew 15:19-20 (NASB) "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. These are the things which defile the man...” 

Jeremiah 17:9 (NASB) “The heart is more deceitful than all else

And is desperately sick; Who can understand it? 

Jesus came to cleanse away the stain of sin that each of us are born with and to  make us whole, to redeem us from the curse of death and hell and to give us His own righteousness which we could not ever earn by being good enough on our own. 
Only Jesus Christ can wash our sins away.

Detail: Ford Maddox Brown Artist 19th C British

Peter said, “No! You will never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered, “If I don’t wash your feet, you are not one of my people.”

Jesus Christ told Peter that if He did not wash him, he could not be one of His people. 

Only the shed blood of Jesus Christ can wash away the stain of our sins. 

Jesus Christ was the spotless Lamb of God sent to bear our sins on the cross as a blood sacrifice. He died in our place so that our sins could be forgiven. 

In Christ's demonstration to His disciples He had wrapped the towel of a slave around Himself and washed their feet as a slave would have. 
We are all slaves of sin apart from salvation in Christ.
Sinless Jesus took off His beautiful Heavenly spotless sinless robe and put on our robes stained with the slavery of sin and bore them on the cross.

"For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ." ~2 Corinthians 5:21

Hebrews 9:22 "And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness."

On the third day God raised Christ from the dead. All who receive Jesus into their hearts as their Lord and Savior will be raised from the dead and given eternal life with Christ in Paradise.

John 11:25-26 (NASB) "Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.” 

By washing their feet, Jesus wanted to leave His disciples with a powerful visual reminder of what His earthly mission was all about.

His humble, selfless act still speaks to us today about our need for His cleansing from our sins.

It tells us to follow His example of obedience and love to His Father and to serve one another humbly out of our love, obedience and worship to Him.

John 3:16-17 (NASB) “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. 

Prayer

Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Thy only Son to cleanse us from our sins. 

Thank You, Lord Jesus, for laying aside Your Heavenly Throne for a season so that You could suffer & bear our sins on the cross & die in our place; 

Thank You Holy Spirit for making Thy truth known to our hearts,

We love You, Lord,  in Jesus' name, amen. 

"The Heavenly Servant" © 2015 Suzanne Davis Harden All Rights Reserved. //Bible Illustration by Ford Maddox Brown, 19th century British Pr-Raphaelite Painter, //Photo of Jesus holding Lamb via Pinterest//Scripture Quotations (NASB) New American Standard Bible, © 1995 The Lockman Foundation All Rights Reserved.// (ERV) © 2006 World Bible Translation Center All Rights Reserved. /"Nothing But The Blood" Music Video & Vocals © 2015 Suzanne Davis Harden

Houses Built On Sand

Matthew 7:24-27

 “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, 

I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock:  

and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; 

and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.

“But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, 

will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: 

 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; 

and it fell. And great was its fall.”

HOUSES BUILT ON SAND

© 2015 Suzanne Davis Harden All Rights Reserved.

Houses built upon the sand

Though castles grand they be

Will someday crumble to the ground

And wash into the sea.

No matter if their walls are gilt

With all the finest gold

Nor if their floors are marble,

The finest that is sold.

For all the houses built on sand

Cannot withstand the tide

That swallows all upon its shores~

Nothing on it abides

Except the million grains of sand

That form the boundaries

Of the ever restless waves

That dance upon the sea.

Only those who build their house

Upon the Rock of Christ

Will withstand the constant tides

Throughout the Sea of Life.

For the ever flowing tides

Are not as strong as He

Who controls the wind and waves

And calms the surging sea.

Jesus said that those who build

Their house upon His word

Were founding it upon a Rock

That ever would endure.

Lord Jesus, help me build my house

Upon Thy holy word,

Hold me through the Sea of Life

In You, my heart secure,

In Jesus' name,

Amen.

Prayer 

Heavenly Father, please forgive us for all the times when we have listened to Thy word 

and have not obeyed. 

Search our hearts, oh Lord. 

Reveal to us where we have been blind and deaf to Thy Holy Spirit's promptings within us. Reveal to us all the ways where we have grieved Thy heart in not loving and forgiving others as You have commanded us. 

For in disobeying You we have built our houses on sand. Thank You that Thy word declares that"there is forgiveness with Thee that thou mayest be feared." 

We repent now of all disobedience to Thy revealed will and ask forgiveness for being hearers and not doers of Thy holy word,  

in Jesus' holy name.

Thank You, Lord, we love You, Amen. 

*The Illustration "Building Sandcastles" by Suzanne Davis Harden is available as an 8" x 10" Inch Triple matted  print at Wings Publications on Etsy: Visit Suzanne's Etsy Shop at this link for more  information:Wings Publications

 

Houses Built On Sand Prayer Poem  © Suzanne Davis Harden & *Illustration "Building Sandcastles" © 2015 Suzanne Davis Harden All Rights Reserved. Unto The Least Of These. Scripture Pictures courtesy You-Version Online Bible, NKJV Bible Translation © 1982 Thomas Nelson, Inc.
  

Five Things God's Children Should Never Worry About

God Cherishes You! His love for you is measureless. St. Peter wrote, “Turn all your anxiety over to God because he cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:7)

I pray you will be filled with the knowledge of God’s amazing love for you. I pray you will sense Christ’s presence and His peace in your life. I pray you will be blessed beyond measure and that He will hear and give you all that you are seeking from Him. In Jesus name. Amen. ♥️