Victorious Faith Defeats Satan (Job 1:12-22)

According to Job 1:12 the Lord gave Satan permission to afflict Job up to a certain point.
God told Satan that he could do what he wanted with all Job had, but he was not to touch Job himself. So Satan set out to prove that Job was not what God claimed him to be, but God's purpose was to show that Job was a man of God.

When the great calamities fell upon Job, it was not Satan's lightning nor Satan's whirlwind that brought destruction. The lightning and the wind belong to God.

Satan merely had permission from God to use them. Even Job saw this, for he said, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord" (v. 21).

The character of a person is generally revealed at a time of sudden crisis. When there is no time for reflection, our true nature is revealed. This is especially true when someone is under as much pressure as Job was.

Satan was defeated by Job's turning to the Lord. The Evil One failed in everything he tried to do against Job.

Instead of driving Job away from God, Satan had driven him closer to God. Here was a man who could be faced with all that Satan could cast at him and still stand firm in his faith.

Is this how we react when Satan brings trials and testings into our lives? Or do we cringe and ask why? Do we shake and tremble under the terrible trial?

"My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor. 12:9).

Wastelands

There are dry, fruitless, lonely places in each of our lives, where we seem to travel alone, sometimes feeling as though we must surely have lost the way. What am I doing here? How did this happen? Lord, get me out of this!

He does not get us out. Not when we ask for it, at any rate, because it was He all along who brought us to this place. He has been here before--it is no wilderness to Him, and He walks with us. There are things to be seen and learned in these apparent wastelands which cannot be seen and learned in the "city"--in places of comfort, convenience, and company.

God does not intend to make it no wasteland. He intends rather to keep us--to hold us with his strength, to sustain us with his sure words--in a place where there is nothing else we can count on.

"God did not guide them by the road towards the Philistines, although that was the shortest...God made them go round by way of the wilderness towards the Red Sea" (Ex 13:17,18 NEB).

Imagine what Israel and all of us who worship Israel's God would have missed if they had gone by the short route--the thrilling story of the deliverance from Egypt's chariots when the sea was rolled back. Let's not ask for shortcuts. Let's keep alert for the wonders our Guide will show us in the wilderness.

The Work of The Accuser

One of the names of the enemy is the Accuser. It is his doing, when we have sought God's guidance and been as obedient as we knew how, and then remain in an agony of doubt as to whether God did guide, whether we really did obey. There is no end to the "proofs" the Accuser can present to sow doubt in our minds. "Hath God said?" (Gn 3:1 AV) was the first seed he sowed in the mind of Eve, and he has had a great deal of practice at that kind of planting ever since.

It is to be expected that every decision made with the desire to be obedient to God will be attacked. Spread your doubts before the Lord. Pray for correction of any wrong in thinking or doing and for his word of assurance as to the action you must take. If there is nothing else required of you at this moment, leave it at that. Trust God. Put the whole weight of your doubts and cares on Him--that will foil the Accuser.

"It is God who pronounces our acquittal....It is Christ who pleads...our cause" (Rom 8:33,34 EB).

Sufficient for Each Day (1 King 17:8-16)

Because Elijah was a man like us, he undoubtedly wondered what God had in store for him when he saw the brook beginning to dry up. Since he was trusting in God, however, he believed and help arrived.

God did not send a sudden squall of rain for that immediate neighborhood, nor did he provide some supernatural source of water in that place. Instead, Elijah was to arise, go to Zarephath and dwell there. Only at Zarephath would a widow provide food for him.

Few of us have faced the extremity this widow experienced. It seemed as though each day she might face starvation; yet each day by faith she trusted God to meet her need.

The result was that she and her house "did eat many days" (1 Kings 17:15). God supplied not a year at a time but a day at a time.

This is what we need with regard to God's grace. We do not need a great stockpile of it for future use but a daily appropriation of it, which God supplies freely.

The manna was gathered daily, not in the evening but in the morning, and each one gathered for himself. So must we accept grace from God.

We cannot hoard today's grace for tomorrow or call on yesterday's grace for today. We cannot gather enough on a Sunday to last a whole week. We need to have daily contact with God,
particularly in the morning.

"Give us this day our daily bread" (Matt. 6:11).