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Job 20-28
We ended last week with Job’s certainty that he needed more than an advocate to plead his case or an intermediary to come between him and God. So that is why he calls for a Redeemer. “Job is no longer asking for an intermediary or someone to plead his case but for a Redeemer to rescue his life. He is not asking for a friend but for a family member who will claim him before God. While everyone in his immediate family has either been taken from him or deserted him he is asking for a family member he cannot see not just to plead his case before God but…
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Jacob Wrestles With God
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The Time is Right
A dozen years ago I was asked by a friend if I would consider sharing what I am thinking: “People are curious about why you think the way you do.” Whether it was false humility, fear, or an aversion to being put in a box, I declined. Two years later, I changed my mind when I remembered the old saying that you don’t know what you think until you have written it down. It was not out of a desire to share that I started writing a weekly blog but, selfishly perhaps, a desire to know for myself what I thought. Just as Thoreau went to the woods to live…
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Job 15-19
Again, we need to see the context of our assigned passage this morning. Last week we met Job’s three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. It’s not exactly our definition of friendship, is it? They sit with him silently for seven days but then their responses to his misery grow increasingly harsh. This morning is no exception. In fact, it is growing hard to believe that they have ever been friends. It almost seems like they have been waiting for years to discover some hidden sin in him that would bring him down. If there ever was even a shred of compassion or mercy it is gone and all that is…
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Jacob Wrestles With God
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Worth the Work
Years ago, a friend made a large donation to help a new organization get started. The founder was an acquaintance and not only persuasive but passionate about the new organization being able to meet a social need not being addressed in the community. The venture failed within two years and ended badly for everyone. I told him he had paid his “dumb tax” on giving. We all pay it either early on – like him – or later. It always comes when we venture into areas about which we know very little and, typically, with people we do not know well. The tax tends to decrease with experience but I’ve…
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Job 2-14
We left Job last week with him having experienced the loss of everything but in spite of that his response was not numb shock or anger. It was simply “the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” We are in Chapter 14 this morning but I think it is important to give the context before we get there. The final words of Job in Chapter 1 might have been the end of Satan’s test but it wasn’t. He insists on upping the stakes and while staying faithful after losing everything is not insignificant it is too easy. The real test will be when…
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Jacob Wrestles With God
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The Good Commission
Some blogs are diaries – personal and revealing by making you feel you have been invited into the interior of the author’s life. Others are more like almanacs – filled with useful information and resources by pointing you to other people and places. I’m more like the latter. I want to point you to a wonderful example of the diarist who draws you into the interior of his life. Such is the case here. This is a short excerpt from David Wayne, a pastor in Baltimore, Maryland wrestling with God and cancer. “I have tried to play the good soldier in my battle with cancer but have secretly nursed a…
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Job 1
For a number of reasons I have never taught the book of Job. The easiest excuse is it has never been assigned in the curriculum. But even now that it has I have been tempted to skip it and go with something easier and less intense. After all, how many of us want to spend the next several weeks talking about suffering? Haven’t we had enough suffering in the last year? Wouldn’t we rather have something more upbeat and affirming? Another reason is almost superstitious for me and maybe for you as well. It is the sense that if you start talking about something bad then it may happen to…
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Jacob Wrestles With God
