May God Bless America

Passage:  Job

Main Point:  Leave all that happens to the God who loves you.

• Lesson Good or bad, God is faithful!
• Blessing  Those who rely upon the Lord; who humble themselves before the Lord; who obey the Lord through the thick of things are those who will see the blessing of God.  Until our last breath, God is not yet finished with His plan.  It is not yet over, so wait on the Lord and the blessing will come in due time. 
• Command Do not curse God in the midst of severe trials
• Sin The greatest sin is to suppose to know more than the Lord, Himself.  This means to think that we not only understand the universe about us, but also to suppose we understand it enough to control it; to bend it to our will. 
• Revelation about God  We find that God is still supreme over all things.  He controls the universe; and He alone.  Even in our scientific advancements and technological sophistication, we are still mystified about many things, and we still cannot control many things.  God is greater than all of us, wiser than all of our knowledge, and mightier than all of our collective power.
• Thoughts about the devil  The Devil is real, and he is seeking to convince us to reject the Lord.  That was his intent with Job, and it is his intent with us.  He is also very successful.  Only a true knowledge of the Lord, founded in a relationship with the Lord, can stand the deceit of the Father of Liars.

Devotional:

Today marks the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on our nation that killed so many innocent people.  That attack on our nation was real and thousands innocently lost their lives.  Grief struck America to the core of her national soul - and we mourned.  We turned, momentarily, to our God.  Church attendance rose sharply for about 30 days, and has declined ever since.  Now, nine years later, we vaguely remember the attacks and even fainter in our memory is our God.  At the Democratic National Convention (representing the incumbent president, I might add), there was a large portion of the Democratic party who were emotionally opposed to the mere mention of God in their party's platform.  Our nation has all but forgotten God.

Yet, He still reigns.  America is still "one nation under God" - whether or not we will admit it as a nation.

We have among us as American citizens, those who represent Job, and those who represent his friends.  God declared Job to be righteous in the end, and his friends not.  Why is that?  Job humbled himself before God and repented.  His friends did not.  There are a few parallels we might draw between our nation, and Job which might give us some answers to our present downfall as a nation.

• Those who are righteous in God's sight are the few, not the many.  Job was one of four.  Do you suppose that only 25% of America is righteous?
• Religion and Religious knowledge do not make one righteous.  Job's friends knew a great deal of religion, but were not humble before the Lord.  Only Job's repentance made him righteous in the sight of God.  Today, more Americans need to repent of their sin of unbelief and turn to the only hope we have - Jesus Christ, the One God sent to save our souls.  Only by faith in Jesus - a relationship with Him - can we hope to be righteous in God's sight. 
• God is far greater than the best of us all.  Job thought that God owed him something.  Do we as a nation believe God owes us?  We may have cause to mourn, but that is not a sign of God's debt to us.  Because of our God, we also have cause to rejoice!  We have the God of the Bible to look to; He can lift us up out of our mourning and place us back on the mountain of joy!  He is the God who did that for Job in His time.  He is the same today, and will be forever!  He is the source of our salvation and the defender of His people.  Let us return to Him in our hearts; let us repent of our arrogance and pride; let us again make policies that are intended not to comfort ourselves, but to glorify the ONLY Living God and Savior!  Then "May God Bless America!"