How to be Put to Severe Testing: "He Feared God and Shunned Evil"

Not everyone is chosen for this. Most people are chosen to be rich, successful or placed in high position or in leadership. Many more are chosen to make lots of money. But very few are chosen to be tested as Job was tested. And you qualify for the test only if you fear God and shun evil.

When God sees someone seriously fearing God and shunning evil, he chooses him for testing, not to see whether he (or she) genuinely fears God and hates evil, but to brag about him to the enemy. The Book of Job lets us a peek into the happenings in the spirit realm, particularly the nature of spiritual warfare. It's not really a God versus Satan scenario but a Satan versus genuine men of God.

There cannot be a GOD versus Satan feud, because no one is God's equal to be honored the place as an equal "versus" God. "Versus" means equal forces warring each other. Satan is not an equal force against God. He is no match to GOD. So what we see in the Book of Job is a "presentation" of spirit beings before God, sort of reporting for duty, not a war preparation. And Satan was among those who "came to present themselves before God."

And here we see the devil roaming around the earth, "going back and forth," seeking whom he may devour. And because Job genuinely feared God and shunned evil, God bragged about him to Satan. 

“Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”

You see that divine pride on a particular man of God? That's divine promotion. It's a powerful blessing to be favored with such fondness by no less than the Lord himself, saying it to Satan in person. Like, "He is my favorite!" We're used to calling anyone "man of God," just because he is seen active in ministry or in church leadership. We fail to grasp what the term realy is.

A genuine man of God is one whom God boasts of to the enemy. And we see how grave the consequence is when you're God's favorite, when he finds you genuinely fearing God and shunning evil. It's a terrible thing to fall into the hands of an angry God, but it's also terrifying to be in his favor.

You want God's favor? Are you ready to be bragged off to Satan? 

It's a different thing to face some hardships now and then. That's normal and ordinary. Suffering a lot and being misunderstood for them---even seen as a stubborn, unteachable sinner---is a different thing altogether. People sympathize and pity you when you simply suffer some things, they even pray for you and help you. But when you're God's favorite being put to the test, you will be grossly misunderstood, rejected, judged and condemned, and hated, first of all, by friends and family.

If someone seems God-fearing and denouncing sin but is never put to severe testing that makes him suffer terribly and gets misunderstood and rejected by those close to him, he is either up for the testing very soon, or he just seems God-fearing and hating sin. If you're up for severe and cruel testing, brace yourself, go closer to God and spend more time with him. He alone will be your strength during those times when you'd feel abandoned and "punished" by God. But remember that such testing is actually promotion in the spirit realm, a higher level that no one in the worldly "Christian" church can ever understand or appreciate. 

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Job's Prosperity in Suffering

Job was already greatly blessed prior to his great faith test. He was blessed spiritually and financially, had a blessed family. He was described as blameless. If we were the story writer, right there and then we'd say, "And they lived happily ever after." Humanly speaking, there was no reason for a tragic, negative turnabout because obviously Job pleased God. 

Picture source.

You'd be absolutely safe if you pleased God. That's what they say. That's what they preach in church. Something like, if you're faithful with your tithes and offering, God will rebuke the devourer. You'd be safe. You'd be well provided. You'd prosper.

But we find a different thing in Job. Faithful, blameless and all, his whole life changed for the worst. He lost everything, even his children. Often, we just read past this portion like it was nothing, like it was the most natural thing in the world to happen, losing your children. But if you meditate on it and put yourself in his shoe, it was probably the most painful thing that happened to Job. His children killed by a freak disaster. 

Reading it this far, we see only Job's tragedy, his tragic loss. But after we read the whole book, we realize his blessedness. He was actually being prospered by God when the bad things were happening. If you are chosen as an exhibit that God brags about to Satan, what do you call that? Curse? No, you call that honor. 

God's actually proud of you. And what do you think happens when he's proud of you? You think he just blesses you? No, he gives you unusual favor, one that the worldly always mistakes for misfortune. He prospers you with brokenness.

How do you define prosperity? It's when God's blessing on you is sovereign. Prosperity from God given to his favorite servant is not merely material wealth, but holistic and flourishing abundance—more than money, possessions, positions, physical health, family, and everything the world sees and values as crucial. It represents God's sovereign blessing upon an individual's faithfulness, which can be sustained, but which is first tested and refined, and then ultimately restored by God's grace.

During his sufferings Job was actually being "prospered."

It's hard to comprehend when we're so accustomed to realities confined to this world and programmed to think in terms of favor equals material rewards. When you're good and behaving properly, you are rewarded. If you're having a tough time---especially suffering lack and continuously at that---you're most likely doing something wrong and displeasing God. That's the idea today. It was the mindset of Job's three friends, and God later said they were dead wrong.

We need to understand more deeply how Jesus was born in a poor town and born to poor parents and later suffered rejection and crucifixion, crying, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" and yet earlier was declared to be the Father's "beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." 

We need to re-define how we see and understand true prosperity from God. We need to discern who really is favored and being prospered, proving that the Kingdom of God is within you.

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Job 21: The Wicked Live Long and Increase in Power

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Look at my meditation for this morning. Very timely for my present thoughts. From Job 21:

Why do the wicked live on,
growing old and increasing in power?
They see their children established around them,
their offspring before their eyes.
Their homes are safe and free from fear;
the rod of God is not on them.

Their bulls never fail to breed;
their cows calve and do not miscarry.
They send forth their children as a flock;
their little ones dance about.

They sing to the music of timbrel and lyre;
they make merry to the sound of the pipe.
They spend their years in prosperity
and go down to the grave in peace.

Yet they say to God, ‘Leave us alone!
We have no desire to know your ways.
Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him?
What would we gain by praying to him?’

But their prosperity is not in their own hands,
so I stand aloof from the plans of the wicked.

“Yet how often is the lamp of the wicked snuffed out?
How often does calamity come upon them,
the fate God allots in his anger?

How often are they like straw before the wind,
like chaff swept away by a gale?

It is said, ‘God stores up the punishment of the wicked for their children.’
Let him repay the wicked, so that they themselves will experience it!
Let their own eyes see their destruction;
let them drink the cup of the wrath of the Almighty.
For what do they care about the families they leave behind
when their allotted months come to an end?