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Can God brag about you?

Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil." (Job 1:8 NLT). Some see this passage or verse as a question from a God that should know all things.
 
But don't ever make the mistake to think God doesn’t know. There is no question that He could ask that He doesn't know the answer.
 
So, why did He ask Satan that question? Why would the All-knowing God and the creator of all things need to ask a question like that?  And to go another step, why did Satan gave an answer? His response was, "Job has good reason to fear you... You put a Hedge around him." (1:9-10) 
 
Wow, he walked right into that one didn’t he?! In our efforts to be the first one with the answer, we sometime missed the obvious. The question God put to Satan was more of a statement (He [God] knows all things). He knew Satan was fencing around Job (Satan gave himself away with his response "You have placed a hedge around him.” He had to be in the vicinity to see the ‘hedge’ and may have tried a few times to breach it.
 
God took the opportunity to let Satan knows He saw him. He saw him going around trying to find a way into the circle of Job. But what Satan didn’t realize is, in serving God faithfully, giving Him thanks for everything, Job opened a trust account with God; a trust account where even if today he forgot to make a deposit, God would allow him to make a withdrawal (or a little overdrawn account).   
 
“Satan desire is to sift” separate/isolate us.  The NIV states, “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat.” He wants to destroy us. Place us before a firing squad. Keep our minds bothered with the cares of life. But remember, “I have already prayed for you… that your faith should not fail.” (Luke 22:32) “When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him” (Isa 59:19b KJV).
 
Could God brag about us the way He brags about Job? Can He trust us not to give up or give in if He lifts the hedge from around us? It is quite possible to answer yes when all is going well. What about when the bills are just a day late in paying? Just a day! Some of us want to give up our salvation already. The funds promised to us didn’t come at the time it was promised and we falter and don’t want to trust God anymore.
 
If you feel you are at your ‘last straw’, trust Him some more. Wait another minute before you call it quits. Read one more line of His promise. “For ever O Lord thy word is settled in Heaven.” Psalm 119-89
 
Acknowledge Him today- even in a whisper. For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities (lack of strength); but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. (Heb. 4:15-16)
 
Our time for consideration will come. There will be a time in your Christian walk that Satan will ask permission to prove your love for God. His job is to try and show us up. Let him do his job, just don't let him succeed.

1 Comment to Can God brag about you?:

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Nicola Scott on Friday, July 08, 2011 12:18 PM
And the Lord said, "Have you considered my servant, Job? There is no one on earth like him." And if there is any scripture that allows you to embrace the okay-ness of a singular standard, is this. ‘Cause this is God actually speaking about a human being who lived on the earth at the time and he is saying nobody on the earth has built what this guy has built. This guy has achieved a standard that is unprecedented. There is no one in the earth like him. He's blameless. He's upright. He fears God, shuns evil. He uses the exact terminology that Job was. Everything that Job built, everything that Job considered, choices that Job made in the earth to be blameless, choices to be upright in the midst of a messed up generation. Choices to determine I will fear God where everybody around him doesn’t. Choices he made to shun evil, these human choices made out of Job's strength, Job's determination, Job's consideration, Job's moral force in the earth are being held up by God as a divine standard in the heavens. And this is what God tells Satan, "Have you not seen this guy's architecture, his building, what he determined to do? Have you seen what he's building in the earth? Have you considered it? Have you checked it out? Have you evaluated it? This guy's achieved a singular standard. Have you in all of your roaming, seen this?"And what does Satan say? Satan says, "Of course." So God recognizes a standard that was built by Job's personal and mortal efforts, Job's personal and mortal efforts.Job is an aberration to a mortal standard. An aberration means something that is not the norm. He breaks the rules. He's the aberration of the mortal standard. He achieves what is not usual, or what is not allowed. And so he sparks off active discussion and massive events. When you look at the great collision that takes place in the book of Job between God's intent and Satan's determination to tear things down, and you go back to the start of Job, and you realize all of this was started off simply because one guy decided to live in a way that broke the trend.That's all he did. All he did was live right -- upright, blameless, feared God and shunned evil. And yet he sparks off active, lengthy discussion at the highest levels of the spirit realm and sparked off massive events taking place in the earth. So we can make the statement spiritual maturity creates turbulence in the spirit realm. Maturity creates turbulence. Job is a mature person because he has a standard which no one else has achieved. He is ‘no one in the earth like him’ at the time in terms of the earth's standards he is come to full development and maturity in what sphere God had called him to walk in. And so we can make the statement after looking at Job that maturity creates turbulence in the spirit realm. It wakes up the spirit realm. It causes active discussion. It causes God to make a boast. It causes earthly standard to become the subject of conversation in the next dimension. It creates a connection. And we need to be aware of these things as we grow up into Christ and become mature sons of God in the earth.There was no one that Job could say, well, I've got a partner to validate me. He was unvalidated. He was the only one like him in the earth. That's what God said. He didn't need validation. He didn't need to be popular. He didn't need to have anything to compare himself against. He walked in a standard that was delivered to him by the Holy Spirit deep inside of his heart Maturity walks in the dimension of exception. He broke the principle of the prevailing trend. And we have to be deliberate and consciously build Job's pristine standard into our lives.
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