Fourth Week of Lent ~ Thursday

Job had done nothing wrong when this season of unjust suffering came on Him. It was a pass from the enemy who sought out to turn God’s people away from Him. But knowing the man that the enemy had his eye after, God knew that nothing could separate this msn from his faith.

How many times do we face things in our lives that are unfair, that just don’t feel right and that seem to hurt us even though we were doing nothing wrong? Have you ever been able to put yourself in Job he’s and wonder what this sort of accusation must’ve felt like?

- Read Job 19

This passage is great to read in the New Living Translation

- Devotional Thought

The story of the unjust suffeing in the book of Job isn’t dissimilar to the storyline the unjust suffering of our Lord, Jesus Christ on the cross. Doing nothing wrong and being handed a sentence of punishment that far outweighs anything you could’ve ever done even if you lived a lifetime of 3 centuries.

If you’ve ever walked through the stations o the cross, you’ll read about some things that aren’t actually included in the Bible but because of the back story and context of the time, they are included. There are times when Jesus falls under the weight of the cross, and times when He encounters His mother Mary. These moments remind us that Jesus was a man, a man who felt pain, a man who felt abandonment, a man who felt the sorrow of an unjust punishment. And it’s these times that hand us an opportunity to think the literal and physical nature of the cross and waking to be killed on the cross.

The Son of God took the body of a man to pick up pain that wasn’t right for him to take, and yet He did...

Can you imagine yourself walking to the cross?

Can you imagine carrying what you did not deserve to carry?

I don’t know if I fully could. I don’t know if I could comprehend what it means to really give my life up for others, especially for those who don’t love me back!

But each waking day is another opportunity to realise again just what Jesus went through for our salvation. To realise that there would’ve been a moment where it did feel like God had turned away from him and abandoned Him, but we know that’s never true, that just as the Psalmist wrote, there are no heights and no depths that could tear us away from the love of the Father,

- Passage to focus on 

““But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last. And after my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God! I will see him for myself. Yes, I will see him with my own eyes. I am overwhelmed at the thought!”

‭‭Job‬ ‭19‬:‭25‬-‭27‬ ‭NLT‬‬

- Image for today 

Today’s image is of an albastar jar. One that has been beaten and broken, rocked by the wind and weather. But it's been brought back together with gold... more beautiful than before.

- Prayer 

Our Lord,

We know that you live and you reign over everything. Over our ups and downs and anything else that we face! Even when we fall and 'break,' we know that you pick us up and bring us together more beautiful that before!

- Active idea

Is there an area of your life where you are carrying shame? Somewhere that deep inside you know that God has redeemed you but yet you still hold onto the shame over yourself...? Remind yourself today that your redeemer lives and that He WILL stand on what He said.

Write down one area you are proclaiming His name over!

Thank you for joining me today! Hope to see you again soon!

Have a blessed Lent

~ X ~