Wendy's Video Summary - Tuesday, January 19, 2010

(For those of you not participating in the Chronological Bible reading with Wendy Pope, please visit my other blog, “Pondering In His Presence”. Thank you.)

Wendy is chuckling as she reflects back on yesterday’s video. She saw the position of her lips that we were forced to look at as the video froze on that picture and she thought that was funny. It looked like she was giving us all a big smoochy kiss. You just never know what position the picture will be in when the video is posted.

Today we had the opportunity to meet a new character after losing two character’s yesterday. We got to meet Job. We were also introduced to the Accuser, which is also what Satan means, who is our enemy. She found it fascinating to read that the enemy would even be allowed in the presence of God. That was one of the things she jotted down that she found interesting. Job 1:6 says, “One day the members of the heavenly court”, (those are just angels), “came to present themselves before the LORD, and the Accuser, Satan, came with them.” Twice when Job was tested, Satan, or the Accuser came into the presence of God. That sends shivers down her spine. Wendy can’t understand why God would allow him in His presence. That was just big to Wendy.

(As an aside, Wendy explained that she was sniffing today because she has a cold.)

She wants to camp out on the first section of Job 1 and also retreat to the end talking about who Job is as a person. She can’t answer why God allowed these tests for Job or why God allows innocent people to suffer. She doesn’t understand all that, but it happened. This is Job’s life. He was tested in this way, and you will find that God does bless Job. It does come back, so hang in there.

We learned some important things about Job in the first chapter. Job 1:1-3 says, “There once was a man named Job who lived in the land of Uz. He was blameless - a man of complete integrity. He feared God and stayed away from evil. He had seven sons and three daughters. He owned 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 teams of oxen, and 500 female donkeys. He also had many servants. He was in fact, the richest person in that entire area.” We see right there that he was successful, wealthy, important and very influential. He had to have been to have had all of that and been the richest man of his region. Just pulling away from his wealth and success, digging into verse one was just beautiful and Wendy wanted to unpack that today because it gives us great lessons to live by today.

Job was blameless, he feared God and stayed away from evil and was a man of integrity. Wendy wanted to do a word study on what this meant. Blameless sounds like he never did anything wrong…that he was sinless. The Bible also talked about Noah being blameless, but the Hebrew there for the word blameless was actually different. Blameless in this case meant completely moral, innocent, having integrity, morally and ethically pure. It doesn’t mean that he didn’t do anything wrong, but that he lived at a higher standard. If he had integrity, Wendy would believe that he had a relationship with God where he has come to terms with any sin that he had and was found innocent. Interestingly enough, Genesis 25:27 describes Jacob with the word ‘plain’ and it means the same thing. He was described this way before the whole birthright scheme and Wendy thought that was cool that he was described in the same way as Job.

We can be blameless before the Lord. We can be above reproach. We can be in a place of integrity with the Lord if we are honest with Him, honest with ourselves and we are willing to stay in that confession and forgiveness place with the Lord.

He feared God. That does not mean he was in terror of God, afraid that God was going to get him, which so many people believe today, that God is a vengeful God. This means he reverenced God and was respectful of His authority and position. That is really important.

The third thing that described Job, and was used three times in our reading today, was that he turned away from evil. The original translation used the word eschewed. This means to turn aside, depart, reject, abolish and avoid. Basically what we’re saying here is that this man had a right relationship with God, He respected God and he could turn away from evil, depart from it and reject it. That is how God described him. Wendy thought today as she read this, Lord, find me to be this way. Let something be written of me that says, Wendy was blameless, a woman of complete integrity. She feared God and stayed away from evil. Could that be said of her? Oh God let it be.

Y’all have a great day!

(All thoughts transcribed from Wendy's blog to aid those whose computers are not capatible to view these videos.)