Hymn 274 – I Know that my Redeemer Lives
James 1:2, “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” So, where is the joy in being tempted? It is in knowing that this is going to do a perfect and entire work on your faith. That is unreal, and that is what God is giving us. Part of that work has to be done through temptation. There are different types of temptation. Matthew 10:24, “The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord . . If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?” Jesus told the disciples that they would face persecution as His disciples, and if men persecuted Jesus, what would they do to them? Part of our experience is going to resemble that of Jesus’ experiences.
So, the question is: Do I really want to get to know Jesus? Because if I do, what does that mean? It means that some very serious things are going to happen in life. We really want to know who Jesus is and have an understanding of Him and as we do that, we learn about God. There is so much there. The devil was involved in Job’s experiences quite a bit. God’s testimony of Job was that he was perfect and upright. Sometimes I think I become Job’s fourth friend and don’t help him at all. Job 1:8, “Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?”
Things may happen to us and there is no cause for them, but there is always a purpose. There can always be a purpose because we want to get to know Jesus. If we can learn something about Him in every test and in good times, I think we have the purpose of it. We can rejoice in our purpose to get to know Him and to please God.
Job 29, Job was recounting to his friends the days of old when God was with Him. Verse 2, “Oh that I was as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me; When His candle shined upon my head, and when by His light I walked through darkness . . When I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil.” He had a beautiful relationship with God, such a rich experience. Wonderful experiences can teach us about Jesus and we can be motivated to do right and keep right. Jesus sits in heaven, having sweet fellowship with God, and we all have fellowship together on a completely spiritual level.
We can go into every experience and learn about our Redeemer. I think of lives like Job, David, and Abraham: what about our lives? Every week I ask myself, What did I miss this week? It has been a very rich thing to do and I would like to keep focused on not missing His wonderful purpose.