Broke-Boils-Betrayal...OH MY!

A lot of Christians have used their life's misfortune to compare themselves with Job in the Old Testament. We all know the story. Lost his finances, his family, got disturbingly ill, his friends weren't by his side and the cherry on top...his wife was faithless.

I used to use this same terminology "I guess I'm just like Job" as soon as things started turning down hill in my life. When I got sick, when I lost a child, when we didn't have work.Like others I wanted a reason...a comfortable reason as to why I was going through what I was going through and the best way for us to be comfortable is to put it all on God.

Let's look at this story of Job from a Christian perspective. The reason I say Christian is because this signifies AFTER CHRIST.

For starters we often put bad things on God. However James 1:18 says God tempts no man. In the story of Job we see that this is correct. God didn't tempt Job. This attack was directly from the Satan himself. And if you remember John 10:10 gives Satan's job description to steal, kill, and destroy. Satan was on his job which is why he came and landblasted Job. God didn't make Job sick, kill his family, or take away his finances. Satan was and will always be the source of poverty, disease, confusion, division.

Satan was doing the attack. When we accept it, we are calling Satan's work God's. Christ said I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly. He came so that the quality of our living would be in abundance. Sickness and being broke doesn't sound abundant to me.

Satan is our enemy. Remember that Job's story takes place in the Old Testament BEFORE Christ come and died. This means Job had no knowledge or ability to rebuke Satan and his work. As a Christian, a New Testament believer, one who is alive AFTER Christ's death, has been given more than enough of the authority of Christ. We have been given the ability/power to rebuke, cast, cease, bind, and destroy the work of the enemy. Luke 10:19. To say that we should suffer under such attacks disannuls the Word/Work of Christ and makes it of none effect.

Christians have to get over their own traditional beliefs and read the Work of Christ to get to know their new and true Identity. If you were meant to be Job and allow Satan to have his way in your life...what point was there in Christ's death and the entire New Testament? To discover our identity in Him we must turn to those books of the bible in which he taught and look at examples of what it means to follow HIM.

So in summary here's why we shouldn't accept Job's experience as our own:

• Anything attacking your finances, health, family, or marriage is not under the finished work of Christ but under Satan's job description given in John 10:10
• As a product of the finished work of Christ we (followers of Christ) have authority over Satan and his work Acts 10:38, Matt 12:25, 1Peter 2:24, Colossians 1:13, Isaiah 53:4 Luke 10:19, James 5:16, Acts 1:8, 1 Cor 6:17, Luke 17:21, Luke 6:10,
• Job (Old Testament Believer) accepted it because he didn't have what we have and that is Christ's sacrifice to give us power (New Testament Believer)
• We are to be renewed into the image of Christ. Colossians 3:10 He is the pattern of our living.

Job's story is not a mirror for anyone alive after Christ....the only reflection we are to see in ourselves is Jesus Christ. Job walked in what he knew at the time and that was just to take it, but CHRIST in His finished work walked in authority and passed it down to us. This is part of that GOOD NEWS GOSPEL. We ought to be excited that we are no longer helpless, but we ought to use the spiritual weapons of warfare (Ephesians 6:10-20)  to fight the enemy back and not accept defeat in our family, health or finances. 

Note: I believe and know that Job's story serves a significant purpose in other aspects.This blog does not address that purpose because I didn't want it to be TOO long. :)