More from Job today…
Job 27:5-6 (NIV)
5I will never admit you are in the right;
till I die, I will not deny my integrity.6I will maintain my righteousness and never let go of it;
my conscience will not reproach me as long as I live.
Let’s recap a bit. God has allowed Job to be tested by Satan, and he has suffered severely because of it, losing possessions, family… even his health. Despite this, Job continues to worship God. Things get interesting when Job is confronted by his friends, who assume that because of his predicament, that God must be punishing him for some sort of sin.
It’s in that context that we get these statements… “I will never admit you are in the right”, “till I die, I will not deny my integrity”, “I will maintain my righteousness and never let go of it”, “my conscience will not reproach me as long as I live.”
Talk about intestinal fortitude!
Imagine yourself in Job’s shoes for a minute, and tell me how YOU would respond.
Me? I would have admitted some sort of generic fault by this point… whether guilty or not, I’d have been questioning myself enough that doubt would have crept in about my standing before God. I would have believed myself unrighteous, whether true or not.
Ever encounter someone like Job? Wholly committed to a task they know is right… never swaying from their cause no matter how difficult the circumstances or how great the pressure to change course?
How did you respond to them? Admiration? Contempt? Anything but indifference, right?
People like Job tend to be polarizing figures… we either love them or hate them… even when their cause is 100% right and they are following God wholeheartedly. We simply see truth in too many shades of grey nowadays, and this kind of black and white certainty of commitment is, well… almost shocking.
The path to popularity certainly does not lie in being a person wholly committed to God, never swaying from His way.
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