The certainty and victory of faith

I know whom I have believed (2 Timothy 1:12).

Job lived in fellowship with God, and he was blessed spiritually and materially. Yet within a short time, he was stripped of so much he had so freely and richly enjoyed. God valued Job and delighted in his life, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?” (Job 1:8). Satan’s response to God’s declaration teaches us more about Satan than it does about Job, “Does Job fear God for nothing?” (v.9). Satan reduces everything to self-interest and has no understanding of Job’s joy of walking with God and less still of God’s delight in His servant’s faithfulness. God allowed Job to lose so much to prove the reality and the richness of his faith. He went through the deepest waters and proved the words of Habakkuk 3:17-19,

Though the fig tree may not blossom,

Nor fruit be on the vines;

Though the labour of the olive may fail,

And the fields yield no food;

Though the flock may be cut off from the fold,

And there be no herd in the stalls—

Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,

I will joy in the God of my salvation.

The Lord God is my strength;

He will make my feet like deer’s feet,

And He will make me walk on my high hills.

When everything was taken away, Job’s faith in God remained resolute: “Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” (v.10). What followed was the spiritual journey of a man who experienced extreme physical, emotional and spiritual torment. It was in this furnace of suffering that utter faith was forged. A trust that looked beyond the pain of the present to the certainty of an eternal future. Job declares, “For I know that my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth; And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, That in my flesh I shall see God” (Job 19:25-26).

Job’s faith in God was expressed through his future hope of resurrection and seeing God. And it was also expressed in the present by seeing God in the deepest experiences of life. Job’s final words in the Book of Job are, “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6). Job arrives at the place where he casts himself entirely upon God, not depending on his own righteousness but on the grace of God. God’s response was to shower him with blessings. We cannot always understand the ways of God in our lives. Paul, like Job, was chosen to suffer “many things” in the service of Jesus Christ (Acts 9:16) and wrote, “For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day”. This is not the cry of fatalism but the certainty of living faith; The weighing of experiences on the scales of grace and being victorious.