The Daily Word: Friday, August 23rd, 2019
Job 8:1-11:20
1 Corinthians 15:1-28
Psalm 38:1-22
Proverbs 21:28-29
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Commentary from Pastor Michael White:
Know therefore that God exacts from you less than your iniquity deserves. – Job 11:6b
Zophar was Job’s friend! But he gave Job some bad advice. He should have been supporting Job. But instead, the central theme of his message to his “friend” was, “Know therefore that God exacts from you less than your iniquity deserves.” In other words, he was saying, “Job, you deserve this.”
In fact, Job didn’t deserve his suffering. Job was righteous and blameless before God (Job 1:1, 8)! But whenever someone else goes through the wringer, our first tendency is to judge them. We assume they messed up. We assume they are getting what they deserve! Surely, we say, they must have done something to put themselves in that situation. We assume that the disaster that has just hit them can never hit us!
But the moment you point a finger and say, “That would never happen to me,” is the moment you make yourself the enemy’s next target. Pride says, “You deserve it” to someone else. But humility says, “I deserve it too.” You see, the problem with judging someone else is, you are just as sinful! Scripture says that we have all sinned (Rom 3:23), and the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23)! All of us “deserve” calamity; and that is where Jesus comes in. He took our death and destruction on the Cross, so that you and I could walk free.
When you see someone really going through it: pray for them instead of judging them. You reap what you sow; and by withholding judgment, you will withhold yourself from judgment down the road.
Prayer:
Father, help me not to judge the people around me who are facing accusations and going through tribulations. I know I am guilty; but Jesus died to make me innocent. Without the Cross, I am nothing; but because of the Cross, I am free!
Archives
See commentary from this day in 2014.
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See commentary from this day in 2016.
See commentary from this day in 2017.
See commentary from this day in 2018.
© Michael D. White, 2019. All rights reserved.