Remember Your Redeemer
Opening Prayer
O Lord, I yearn for the day that I will see You face to face, when I will know even as I am known.
Read Job 19:1-29
[1] Then Job replied: [2] “How long will you torment me and crush me with words? [3] Ten times now you have reproached me; shamelessly you attack me. [4] If it is true that I have gone astray, my error remains my concern alone. [5] If indeed you would exalt yourselves above me and use my humiliation against me, [6] then know that God has wronged me and drawn his net around me. [7] “Though I cry, ‘Violence!’ I get no response; though I call for help, there is no justice. [8] He has blocked my way so I cannot pass; he has shrouded my paths in darkness. [9] He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head. [10] He tears me down on every side till I am gone; he uproots my hope like a tree. [11] His anger burns against me; he counts me among his enemies. [12] His troops advance in force; they build a siege ramp against me and encamp around my tent. [13] “He has alienated my family from me; my acquaintances are completely estranged from me. [14] My relatives have gone away; my closest friends have forgotten me. [15] My guests and my female servants count me a foreigner; they look on me as on a stranger. [16] I summon my servant, but he does not answer, though I beg him with my own mouth. [17] My breath is offensive to my wife; I am loathsome to my own family. [18] Even the little boys scorn me; when I appear, they ridicule me. [19] All my intimate friends detest me; those I love have turned against me. [20] I am nothing but skin and bones; I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth. [21] “Have pity on me, my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me. [22] Why do you pursue me as God does? Will you never get enough of my flesh? [23] “Oh, that my words were recorded, that they were written on a scroll, [24] that they were inscribed with an iron tool on lead, or engraved in rock forever! [25] I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. [26] And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; [27] I myself will see him with my own eyes-I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me! [28] “If you say, ‘How we will hound him, since the root of the trouble lies in him,’ [29] you should fear the sword yourselves; for wrath will bring punishment by the sword, and then you will know that there is judgment.” Scripture taken from the THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
Do you know Jesus to be a friend in suffering?In this chapter, we read Job’s response to Bildad’s ultimately futile theories about why suffering exists. Here, his supposed words of comfort are exposed as directly opposite. Job’s feelings of isolation, hinted at in chapter 9, return with fuller force. Everyone shuns him, he says (13-22). Job’s friends had started off so well. They sat with their suffering friend in silence (2:11-13). It’s a pity they didn’t continue their vigil in the same way!When friends let you down, remember there is another friend who won’t. Job calls him “Redeemer” (25). In Hebrew law, this was your closest male relative, whose job it was to buy back your property if you had to sell it to survive, avenge your death and father children with your wife if you died childless, so that your family line continued. Jesus, our Redeemer, defeats death and gives us a future and a lasting inheritance. In the midst of suffering, when we feel alone and friendless, it’s comforting to know we have “a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Prov. 18:24).
Apply
Picture Jesus whispering, “I’m with you.” What is the effect as you hear those words and sense his presence?
Closing prayer
Faithful Lord, who gave all to redeem me, I love You, and I trust You forever.
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