them every moment? (Job 7:17-18)
Who would dare speak to God in this fashion? Only a person of faith. Job is a model for us. He is overwhelmed by his suffering. He doesn't understand it. He searches his soul to discover any sin of which he is unaware, then pleads with God that if there is any sin why doesn't God pardon, rather than pile suffering upon suffering.
If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of humanity?
Why have you made me your target? (7:20)
Job is asking the same question most of us ask at one time or another: Why? The question will continue to haunt us, and we may never find a satisfactory answer to the expansive issue of evil and suffering in the world. We all know this: life isn't fair, but we need to keep reminding ourselves that life isn't God.
GOD IS FOR US
Honesty is essential in our relationship to life and to God. We must own who we are, the circumstances of our life, and keep a clear perspective about the character of God. We have what Job did not have—a clear revelation of God in Jesus Christ, which gives us the confidence of Paul that "in everything God works for good with those who love him" (Rom. 8:28 RSV).
Paul asks a number of questions in this Romans passage. Two of them, in particular, give us perspective. One, "If God is for us, who is against us?" (v. 31b). Paul doesn't want his readers to miss the powerful affirmation he is giving through the question, so he uses an allusion from sacred history that would immediately grab the attention of his Jewish audience. "He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?" (v. 32).
Think of the greatest example you know of a person's loyalty to God. Think of Abraham, Paul is saying. God's love and loyalty to us is like that. Just as Abraham was so faithful and trustful to God—willing to sacrifice his only son for God—God is so loving and faithful that he sacrificed his only Son. If a God like that is for us, who can be against us?
The second question, "Who will separate us from the love of Christ?" (v. 35). For the question to burrow its way into our minds, Paul names those things that threaten us: tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness— all the perils of human life; included in that for us would be heart attack, stroke, cancer, surgery, war, tornadoes, earthquakes. Can these separate us from the love of Christ? Paul shouts his answer: "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us" (v. 37).
Life isn't fair, but life isn't all there is. In all the "whys" of life, we can be more than conquerors. We appropriate that truth by using our circumstances, whether pain and suffering or affirmation and joy, to more consciously claim the love of Christ.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION
Where have you been treated unfairly? God is for you and for me. How can this promise help you meet life's difficulties? Where do you need God's friendship today?
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THERE IS A PRICE
JOSHUA 23:14-16; JOSHUA 24:19-27; MATTHEW 13:44-47
There is an old adage that has God saying, "Take what you wish . . . and pay for it!" It's true. There is a price for everything.
To be sure, the beauty of God's creation is a gift. Yet there is a "price" to pay if we are going to really enjoy it. We are often dull to beauty, with no eyes to see, because we don't take time to sit quietly and take in the beauty that God is offering us through his creation. The fact is those things we think are free, indeed, those things given as gift, require something from us to fully appreciate them. There is a price—a price for everything.
In chapter 13 of his Gospel, in just four verses, Matthew records three parables of Jesus. In these three brief parables, there are two big lessons. One, no entrance price to the Kingdom is too great, and two, there will be a time of judgment.
In the first parable, a man, by chance, found a treasure hidden in a field and sold everything in order to raise the money to purchase the field. In the second parable, a merchant seeking fine pearls found one pearl of such value that he sold all he had and bought it.
Jesus is talking about the Kingdom, our living in the realm of the Lordship of Christ. There is a price for that. Whatever it takes to enter, whatever cost may be exacted from us, the Kingdom of God is worth it.
WHERE IS YOUR TREASURE?
The overarching lesson of the parable of the treasure in the field and the pearl of great price is that no entrance price to the kingdom is too great. The merchant seeking fine pearls demonstrates this lesson differently than the farmer. Two truths loom large in the story: one, we are likely to find what we search for persistently; and two, we are likely to receive what we want passionately.
Now back to the central point of these parables. Why did Jesus tell two parables at the same time with the same message? He didn't want anyone to miss the point. Anyone, everyone, the rich and the poor receive the Kingdom the same way—by making it the priority of their lives.
Joshua had a vision of this as it related to Israel and Israel's faithfulness. As he came to the end of his life, he reminded the people that what appears to be an unconditional promise of faithfulness on God's part is, in fact, conditional. This is the message of the whole of Scripture. God's promises to act in our individual lives and in history are often connected with conditions we are to meet. So Joshua reiterated the case: Israel's devotion or lack of devotion will determine whether or not the Lord's promise will be realized. "You know in your hearts and souls . . . that not one thing has failed of all the good things that the LORD your God promised concerning you" (Josh. 23:14).
But it might not always be that way. If Israel turned away from God to idolatry, "just as all the good things that the LORD your God promised . . . so the LORD will bring upon you all the bad things" (23:15). And just before his death, Joshua reaffirmed Israel's covenant with God and put a huge stone of reminder in the sanctuary and announced to all the people,
"See, this stone shall be a witness against us; for it has heard all the words of the LORD that he spoke to us; therefore it shall be a witness against you, if you deal falsely with your God." (24:27)
The stone would be a visible reminder and witness against the Israelites if they strayed from the Lord.
Jesus' third parable about the Kingdom, then, should not be a surprise. The parable of the fishing net tells us there will be a time of separation, a time of judgment. Jesus' language is as "hard" as Joshua's. The angels will "separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matt. 13:49-50). It's a sobering picture, and it leaves us with a searching question: Is the way we live affected at all by the fact that one day we are going to stand before the judgment bar of God and give an account of our deeds?
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION
What good things have come your way that you didn't expect or plan? God is your friend, but how good a friend are you to God? What steps do you need to take to live a life more pleasing to God?
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CURIOSITY OR CONSECRATION?
GENESIS 22:9-19; MATTHEW 16:24-28; ROMANS 12:1-8
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