“The Job answered the Lord, and said, ‘I know that Thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from Thee.” Job 42:1-2
Dear Ones:
When we study the life of Job, and God’s dealings with him, we must ask the question: “What was God’s purpose in allowing Job to suffer such loss, and pain, even though he was a man who was, according to Scripture, “…perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil?” (Job 1:1) The answer is found to be the same in answer to Paul’s word in the letter to the Roman believers: “For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.” (8:29) God’s eternal dealings with Job had for their objective the same as His dealings with the believers in Rome. It would be to communicate to and through Job, as it would be in the lives of Roman believers, the very knowledge of the life and power of Jesus Christ, thus transforming them, and conforming them into the image of the Perfect Man, Christ the Lord. Christ is declared to be the first, highest and most elevated, exalted Brother, and King, among many brethren. Both Job and all believers are called to KNOW God, not just with the intellectual knowledge of the truths that they learn of God, but in their experience, as Paul put it, “…the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.” (Phil. 3:8) Leaving us in doubt as to the difference between objective truth, and the LIFE of power according to the truth, Paul writes: “…that I man know HIM, and the power of His resurrection.” (3:10) Do these concepts truly apply to us, for we are not Job, and certainly not the believers of antiquity? Do Paul’s words truly apply today to us? Let us look closer. In Paul’s letter to the Ephesian believers, he wrote of the knowledge of Christ, and the experience of His indwelling life according to the truth, but by the Spirit: “Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the POWER that worketh in us.” (3:20) The believers of Paul’s day were those which had been born again of the Spirit, the Father having placed them IN Christ, inseparably one with Himself. The believer of this present day is no different. That which they were called, and destined, to be and to KNOW is the same for us. It is the same calling, the same Body of Christ, and the same promises, clearly declared in Christ’s New Covenant, or Testament. How then, are we to truly KNOW Christ?
The experiential knowledge of Christ begins with a knowledge of God’s ways. God in His wisdom designed the work of salvation. He also provided its power. The entirety of the Gospel is based upon, permeated with, and declared to be the absolute truth of God. Only as the truths of the Gospel are learned, grasped, and believed, that the power of God will be revealed and known in answer to faith. This is why the knowledge of the truth is so very essential and also the reason for which the enemy of our souls is always seeking to hide and distort the truth. Job came to know God in a very real, profound, and eternal way, because the truth of God was revealed to him, and he grasped it. The believer is called to know the objective truth of Christ, but then, according to the truth, to appropriate His life as their own. It is at this point that truth blends with power, and the life of Christ is known in the heart. Christ saves the lost, breaks the power and dominion of sin, Satan, and the world according to Gospel, putting His victorious life and power in the believer Job declared: “I know that Thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from Thee.” Have we not grasped that God can still do everything in us, to KNOW Him in truth and power?
Dear Father, Open our eyes and hearts to know Thee. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Love, Dad