In Christ we have a Light of hope in a season of our dark despair.

Job 30:

¹⁶ “And now my soul is poured out within me;
    days of affliction have taken hold of me.
¹⁷ The night racks my bones,
    and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest.

Have you ever had a bad time in life like this?

¹⁸ With great force my garment is disfigured;
    it binds me about like the collar of my tunic.
¹⁹ God has cast me into the mire,
    and I have become like dust and ashes.
²⁰ I cry to you for help and you do not answer me;
    I stand, and you only look at me.

IF you even ask, do you sometimes feel like God does not answer you?

²¹ You have turned cruel to me;
    with the might of your hand you persecute me.
²² You lift me up on the wind; you make me ride on it,
    and you toss me about in the roar of the storm.
²³ For I know that you will bring me to death
    and to the house appointed for all living.

 

Does despair, inward pain and silence from God turn your Christmas joy into a longing for the gift of hope?

 

²⁶ But when I hoped for good, evil came,
    and when I waited for light, darkness came.

²⁷ My inward parts are in turmoil and never still;
    days of affliction come to meet me.

²⁸ I go about darkened, but not by the sun;
    I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.

Bible trivia: Job is the oldest of any book of the Bible written approximately 2100-1800 B.C.

 

Job was a righteous man who had some big troubles test his faith. Perhaps you think that you are a righteous man or woman as well. You do mostly good. You live like you should (for the most part).

You cry out to God for help… and nothing…

Job could not help himself, except to pray to God. Often, neither can you or I.

This time of year you may hear the familiar Christmas nativity story told by either Luke or Matthew. If we were to read on in Matthew to a time thirty years later when Jesus first began His teaching, we would read how our Lord heals the afflictions of mankind.

Matthew 4:

²³ And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.

²⁴ So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains,those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them.²⁵ And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.

 

Are you just one in the Christmas crowds who follow Jesus just to see if He will heal someone else?

Jesus Christ IS the balm for your wounded soul and the salvation of your sinful flesh.

Hear these words of encouragement from the Apostle Paul to the church at Corinth:

2 Corinthians 4:

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed;

perplexed, but not driven to despair; 

persecuted, but not forsaken;

struck down, but not destroyed;

always carrying in the body the death of Jesus,

so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.

 

To be continued…

This look at the afflictions of Job is the third installment in my Christmas series in the year of our Lord, 2015.