RIGHTEOUSNESS

Today’s Reading: Job 24-26

Click scripture link to read online or HERE to listen online (then click the symbol of the audio speaker above the scripture portion).

On the way from Maresha National Park and Beit Guvrin to Jerusalem, the sky was spectacular over a farmer’s field and greenhouses.

GOOGLE MAPS – To see where the photo was taken, click HERE.

Key Verse: Job 26:7

He stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth on nothing.

The key verse is fact. Ancient beliefs were incredibly dumb. For example, the Babylonians believed that the Earth was a great giant and we were the vermin on its hide. The Greeks believed in Atlas, a giant man holding up the earth, etc. The Bible is not a textbook on science, but Job had knowledge which was accurate. God reveals Himself in His creation. Psalm 19 tells us, “The heavens declare the glory of God.” Job had no doubt that God is the great Creator and the Sustainer of all things. Job believed that the manifestation of God in nature was just a tiny revelation of Who God is. “Indeed these are the mere edges of His ways.” These people from more than 4,000 years ago were extremely intelligent.

Bildad, in the short chapter 25, asked the right questions. God has given us lots of answers in His Word. For example, Bildad asks, “How can a man be righteous before God?” The word “righteousness” is repeated over 300 times in the Bible. Several statements answer Bildad’s question. Philippians 3:9 informs us that our righteousness is not from our personal efforts but is from God by faith. A New Testament reading which refers to people God considered righteous, who lived even before the time of Job, is Hebrews 11:4-7.

PRAYER FOR TODAY:

Lord God, I thank You that I don’t come before You in my own righteousness, because as Your Word teaches me, my own righteousness is as “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). I pray for grace to consistently trust You for Your righteousness, which is mine by faith. In the Name of the One who alone is 100% righteous, Jesus Christ, Amen!!!

100 PERSONAL WORDS:

It was just a few days after my lifetime decision to serve Jesus with all my heart that I was asked to give a public witness at a Youth For Christ rally in the auditorium of my high school in Pembroke, Ontario. I asked my boss at the Chrysler dealership, Syd Healey (where I had a part-time job), for advice on what I should say. He turned in his Bible to the little book of Titus and read from chapter 3, verse 5, “Not by works of righteousness which I have done, but according to His mercy He saved us.” I think I changed the word “us” to “me” and I quoted this verse to about 500 people that Saturday evening. I told of what had happened to me in the high school in Ottawa, where just a few days before I had gone forward at the invitation, openly declaring my intentions to serve Jesus and trust His Word where he said, “Whoever comes to Me, I will not cast out” (John 6:37). I told them that I simply believed that Jesus would not lie, and John would not write a lie in his Gospel. Therefore, I was assured of my salvation and my salvation does not rest on my goodness but on the goodness and righteousness of Jesus. Around that time, at 16 years old, I began to ask God to give me a call into full-time Christian ministry, if it was His will. The following summer at Youth Camp, God called me in such a clear way that I could never turn back from that call.

Yours for trusting in the “righteousness” of Jesus alone!

David