God's Provision is Perfect

Scripture: Exodus 12:5-6

'Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. 'You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight.

Insights: The second part of God’s provision is that it is perfect.  In order for us to understand this we need to recognize that everything about this Passover meal is a representation of what is to come with Jesus.  So, for example, yesterday we learned that God’s provision starts something new.  For these Israelites experiencing the first Passover it was a new calendar.  It represented the start of their physical freedom from slavery.  For those of us born again in Christ Jesus, it is new life.  It represents the start of our spiritual freedom from sins slavery.  Well, in today’s verses we see that an unblemished sacrifice was required for the children of Israel.  In an earthly since, is there truly a “perfect” lamb?  The answer is no, which is why the requirement for the Israelites was an unblemished lamb.  This intentionality of striving for perfection was pointing us to the true perfect sacrifice, which was Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God.  Jesus was truly perfect.  He had no sin of any kind.  He was the only true sacrifice that could have been made by the Father above for the atoning work of our sins.  All that is required of us is to receive the work of this sacrifice by faith.  We receive this gift by praying and asking Jesus to enter into our lives and make us born again.  This birth is a spiritual birth and it truly does make us new, which is what we learned yesterday.  Beloved, this past Sunday I challenged you pray to the Father each morning for Him to give you an opportunity to share Jesus with someone who may be in need of salvation.  Let me encourage you today to ask the Father to prompt your heart and then be obedient to Him and share about Jesus perfect work as the perfect sacrifice on the cross of Calvary.  If the individual comes to know Jesus as his or her Lord and Savior, then you can join with the angels in worshiping the Lord for this new life in Jesus.  Praise and glory to our Lord above forever and ever. Amen!

Questions:

1. Are you grateful that Jesus was a perfect sacrifice for your sins?
2. Have you received the gift of salvation found in Jesus’ perfect word of atonement for you?

Prayer: Father, thank You for Jesus and His work during Easter.  I am so grateful You provided a perfect sacrifice for my sins.  This work of Yours allows me to have an uninterrupted relationship with You.  May I never take for granted this gift of grace.  Amen.

God's Provisions Start Something New

Scripture: Exodus 12:1-4

Now the LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, "This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year to you.^”  Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, 'On the tenth of this month they are each one to take a lamb for themselves, according to their fathers' households, a lamb for each household. 'Now if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his neighbor nearest to his house are to take one according to the number of persons in them; according to what each man should eat, you are to divide the lamb.

Insights: This week we will be looking at different aspects of God’s provision in our lives.  The first aspect of our provision is God’s starting of something new.  In the context of the Israelites this Passover represented their new found freedom as God delivered them from the Egyptians.  As these verses indicate the Israelite calendar begins with this very month.  It announces their independence day from slavery.  The very same truth is found for those of us in Christ Jesus.  Jesus’ work on the cross of Calvary set us free from our bondage to sin.  We are now new creations and freed from our enslavement.  This reality ought to change our lives.  It ought to make us never get over the life change we have experienced in Jesus.  Beloved, the reality is God constantly wants to do new things in our lives.  He desires to take us on new adventures and stretch us outside of our comfort zone.  The only way this stretching can occur is for God to do new things in our lives.  He does this by teaching us new truths about His character and person.  Remember, God is an infinite God.  We will spend eternity learning new aspects of who He is and how He relates to us.  Stepping out into the unknown of new things can be scary and even difficult at times.  I promise you, however, that it is worth whatever the cost the Lord requires of you.  You will always be better off for faithful obedience than you will be for denial and rebellion to the Lord’s commands.  Beloved, walk in newness of life in Jesus and grow in His matchless grace.

Questions:

1. Have you come to experience the new life found in Jesus Christ?
2. What other areas in your life are you needing to experience a new thing because of your growth in Jesus?

Prayer: Father, thank You for new beginnings and fresh starts.  In Jesus I am growing and maturing.  This growth allows me to engage in new areas of ministry walk in obedience with You in unknown venues.  Lord, continue to allow my heart to be pliable to You and Your instructions  Thank You for my new life in Jesus.  Amen.

Our Plea is Repentance

Scripture: Job 42:6

Therefore I retract, And I repent in dust and ashes."

Insights: All week we have been building to this climactic point for today’s Thoughts by Scott.  We have seen how God’s perspective and our perspective are in contradiction with each other.  We must come to see our life events from the perspective of the Lord which is always perfect.  We then looked at our humble position before the Lord and His holy position before us.  We also elaborated on that truth and helped us understand that we are called to be holy; as well as, the holiness we display is really Christ in us through the power of the Holy Spirit.  So, how do we properly respond to an encounter with God?  We look at our lives from God’s perspective and humbly recognize our sinfulness.  We cry out for His holiness to fill our lives and transform our sin nature into the nature of Christ Jesus.  We perform this transaction of faith in the same way Job did and that is what our verse today presents to us.  How did Job properly respond to his encounter with God?  He repented of his sin.  He retracted his statements and repented with a visual display of brokenness before the Lord by lying down in dust and ashes.  Beloved, the same response is required of us as well.  We must understand that God is just in all He does and we do not always understand.  God never told Job about those two cosmic conversations between Himself and Satan.  He never even gave Job a hint as to why he walked this painful journey.  All God did was question Job about his “vast” knowledge of the universe.  In seeing the Lord face to face as he did, Job understood for the first time that God was sovereign and in control.  Job’s horrific events were not beyond the Lord’s notice or concern.  Job was deeply and eternally loved by the Lord and He did not desire for Job to suffer.  Yet He loved Job so much that He knew Job would be able to go through the trial without blaming the Lord.  We need to respond in the same way, Beloved.  Let us humbly repent of our sin and run to the Lord and let His strength be our sufficiency.

Questions:

1. Have you repented of your sin and turned to the Lord?
2. Are you presently experiencing the joy and peace of being in a right relationship with the Lord?

Prayer: Father, thank You for forgiving me and always being faithful to me.  I sin and fall short of Your standard so often, but You are always quick to restore me when I come with a humble and repentant heart.  Thank You, Lord.  Amen.

God's Position is Holy

Scripture: Job 42:5

"I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees You;

Insights: Tomorrow we will explain what the proper response to an encounter with God is, but until then, we have one more foundational block to lie down.  In today’s verse we see that Job had heard about God, but he had not actually experienced His presence.  Now, however, he has seen the Lord and that encounter changed everything in Job’s life.  From this point on Job truly understands holiness.  He has seen the glory of the Lord and recognizes God’s holiness and God’s presence is far greater than he had previously imagined.  What we need to understand is that God calls us to holiness.  We, however, are incapable of living out holiness properly.  It is God; therefore, that imputes Christ’s holiness into our lives.  In other words, when the Lord God sees us living out holiness, what He is actually seeing is the Holy Spirit manifesting Himself in our lives and empowering us to be holy.  God is seeing Christ in us.  Beloved, the only reason we are able to see God and recognize His holiness and the only reason we are able to have holiness imputed into our lives is because of the truth we learned Wednesday.  In other words, because our position is humility, we are able to see God’s position of holiness.  Because of our humble position, Jesus is able to do a work in our lives and fill us with His holiness.  It is from this perspective that we are able to respond to an encounter with the Lord properly.  I look forward to sharing this final truth with you tomorrow.  God bless you this weekend and may you worship the Lord with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength this coming Lord’s Day.

Questions:

1. Have you seen God and His holiness?
2. Is there anything in your life preventing you from growing deeper in your relationship with the Lord?

Prayer: Father, thank You for letting me know you more and more.  Help me to live a holy life because You are holy and have called me to holiness.  Let me realize that my holiness is really Your holiness imputed into my life.  May my obedience to You and Your will bring You glory.  Amen.

Our Position is Humility

Scripture: Job 42:4

'Hear, now, and I will speak; I will ask You, and You instruct me.'

Insights: Today we move from looking at perspective to observing our position before the Lord.  In other words, because God’s perspective is perfect and ours is imperfect we have no choice but to recognize His superiority over us.  From this realization we come to the fact that for us to grow and mature, we must humble ourselves before the Lord.  Remember, up to this point when God speaks to Job, Job has been rather boisterous in his claim of innocence.  He has basically stated God has been unjust for allowing these calamities to fall on him.  After his encounter with the Lord, however, his tone of speech and posture and position before the Lord radically changes.  Job is now humbled by the Lord and one can picture Job in a prostrate position before the Lord crying out to Him saying, “Lord, instruct me, teach me, I realize I know nothing in comparison to You.  Change my heart and mind to be in compliance and in accord with You.”  God is the only One with the Words of life.  We must humble ourselves, Beloved, and seek hard after the Lord.  If we will enter into our relationship with the Father from this position, I promise you, God will instruct and speak to you.  It is His desire for His children to trust Him and that can only happen from one who is truly humble before the living Lord.

Questions:

1. Are you humble before the Lord?
2. In your position of humility, what has the Lord revealed to you in recent days?

Prayer: Father, thank You for instructing me.  I understand the only true posture for us to be able to hear what You have to say to us in the posture of bowing.  You speak to the humble at heart.  Lord, soften my heart and mold me into the image of Your Son, Jesus, so that I may hear from You.  Open my ears Lord, I want to know You.  Amen.

Our Perspective is Imperfect

Scripture: Job 42:3

'Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?' "Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know."

Insights: In today’s verse Job is declaring to the Lord that he was the one without knowledge.  He was the one attempting to give counsel to others from a place of ignorance to the big picture.  It is for this reason Job now announces that God’s ways are too wonderful for him and for the third time reiterates his lack of knowledge on God’s plans and purposes.  Yesterday I mentioned in the question section about the trees of pain in our lives and the closeness of our situation that often times makes it too hard to recognize the forest.  Often times when we are that close to a problem we cannot clearly delineated the Lord’s path that He would have us to walk.  In other words, our perspective on the situation is imperfect as human beings.  It is for this reason we need to walk by faith and not by sight.  We need to trust the Lord’s perspective and believe He really does know what is best.  After all, Job realized that God’s ways are too wonderful for him to understand.  Beloved, I believe this truth is one of the most difficult for us as people to accept.  It is often times very difficult for us to surrender to the Lord’s plans even though we know His ways are always best.  We need to deny ourselves, pick up our cross daily and follow Him.  It is very easy to write these words, but it is another thing to live those words out before a watching world.  It is my prayer that we recognize our imperfect perspective and trust the Lord by faith and walk in His perfect perspective.  As we live life this way, may it bring Him glory!

Questions:

1. Do you sometimes forget that God truly is in control?
2. Have your decisions in recent days shown your dependence upon you or upon God?

Prayer: Father, I am grateful You do not get lost in this journey of life.  Thank You for Your perfect perspective, especially in light of my imperfect vantage point.  God, let me learn to trust You completely.  Amen.

God's Perspective is Perfect

Scripture: Job 42:2

"I know that You can do all things, And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.

Insights: Last week we looked at The Proper Response to Pain and concluded it was worship.  In other words, we run to Jesus when we are in the midst of our pain.  This week we are concluding the book of Job with The Proper Response to an Encounter with God.  On Friday of this week we will wrap up these Thoughts by Scott with the culminating answer.  Throughout the week, however, we will be laying a foundation which will enable us to put the final piece, which is our proper response to an encounter with God into place.  Having stated these introductory comments, let us jump into today’s verse and the lesson we learn from it.  Job has just had God asking him questions for four straight chapters.  After hearing and encountering God, Job completely understands that God’s perspective on life is perfect.  God can do all things and nothing is going to thwart His eternal plans and purposes.  Job had gotten himself so wrapped up in his pain that he lost sight of God’s sovereign hand that was holding all things together.  We often times wonder why we go through the stuff we go through on this side of eternity.  The better thought, however, is, why not me?  Why ought I not to be the one to experience pain and suffering.  Jesus came to redeem us eternally.  He did not save us to have our best life now as some would purport. Our best life is in eternity with Jesus.  As we learned last week, God trusted Job enough and loved Job enough to allow him to go through this horrific situation.  God knew Job would not sin in his response to suffering.  God is going to bring about His plan no matter what and nothing, not Satan, not me, not you, not anything in this universe is going to thwart God’s plan.  Beloved, we must always keep this perspective in mind as we learn the proper response to an encounter with God.

Questions:

1. Do you understand that God’s perspective is perfect?
2. Have you become so focused on the trees of your problem that you have not been able to see your situation from God’s perspective?

Prayer: Father, I so often get overwhelmed about my problems and pains because I am living the journey out in the present.  Help me to have an eternal perspective on my situations and trust You to know how the end is going to be written.  Your perspective to life is perfect.  Let me grow in Your grace and believe in You for my future.  Amen.