Job 22:21
Today’s devotion is centered around two very vital points which we must come to understand as we journey through this life. The first is that we must know God more intimately each and every day of our lives. This requires a desire to grow, mature and develop in the very will of God. To acquaint thyself with something is to open yourself up, expose your pass or submit to. God is waiting for you to open up to Him, He is waiting for you to expose the skeletons in your closet and He is waiting for you to submit to the divine plan that He has for your life… We will face obstacles in life; however, when we are acquainted with the Lord we are able to trust Him, continue to worship Him and hold on to His unchanging hand… It is only through this acquaintance with the Lord that you mind, body and soul can be at peace… You can accept the challenges of life, you can face the most daunting of tasks and you can endure the severest of storms because you know who God is and more importantly you have grown in knowing what the scriptures say, “I will never leave you nor forsake you…”
I challenge you today to find peace amidst your storms today, find peace within the relationships you have with and adversary, find peace in the most hostile of environments… The storms and struggles which you face today are a direct reflection of the growth and maturation that you have undergone in your intimate relationship with the Lord… Despite knowing that this scripture today is true, we must understand also today that we must be careful in listening to those who surround us in times of misfortune as this is the second point of today’s devotion. Job’s friends said that he must have erred in some way or fashion, but we say later in this poetical book that Job was called on to pray for his friends due to their lack of intimacy with the Lord… Today’s scripture has a twofold meaning that we need to apply to our lives as Christians… We all know the background of Job; He was a man of wealth and prosperity until Satan entered his life by God’s allowance and struck down his children, cattle and eventually his own health… Job was tested through and through and even his closest friends came to the conclusion that he had caused all this by some act which disobeyed God… This passage taken from the book of Job reminds us how we can be at peace within ourselves, but more importantly that we must be guarded with what we allow to enter our ears and thus our minds.
Not everyone you encounter will understand the test that God has given you, some will come against you proclaiming things which simply are not true and it is through this intimate relationship with the Lord that you can fight the fiery darts of the enemy and overcome the temptations that often will come from the lips of those closest to you at your most vulnerable point. I often contend that the removal of Job’s family and cattle were pawn’s on Satan’s chess board; the real threat to Job came in the form of his wife who told him to curse God and die and his friends who accused him of acts which had not been committed… Eliphaz (Job’s friend) tells him that he must acquaint (submit, notify or tell) God of thyself. The passage is true but the application has false pretenses (this has the enemy written all over it)… Satan knows scripture, but the way he tries to apply it is not the way in which God has written it. Be careful to study the very word of God today to develop your relationship with Him; it is only through this acquaintance that you can cast down imaginations and refute unwholesome conversation which may often times come from the very mouth of those you call friends.
ALL FOR HIS GLORY!
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