As one who has intently studied the “Kingdom of God” & “Grace” from a New Covenant perspective, occasionally I feel a tension inside when I hear sermons preached about “Job’s sufferings” as if his experiences were a consistent example of how the normal christian life looks under Christ’s New Covenant establishment of God’s Kingdom in the Earth. (For a more in depth explanation of what I mean by that statement see some of my previous blogs starting with the “Quantum Thinking” series or watch my video on “The Resurrected Life” – www.TattooPreacher.ninja )
Even though Job lived under a significantly different covenant with God than we do today and his authority in the Earth was far more limited than ours under the New Covenant, as a man created in the image of God he could still choose to live in submission to God’s kingship and God said He would back Job’s decisions and declarations.
Check this out – When reading Job 22 today, the end of the chapter really jumped out at me.
Job 22:21-30
21 “Submit to God and be at peace with him;
in this way prosperity will come to you.
22 Accept instruction from his mouth
and lay up his words in your heart.
23 If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored:
If you remove wickedness far from your tent…
26 Surely then you will find delight in the Almighty
and will lift up your face to God.
27 You will pray to him, and he will hear you…
28 What you decide on will be done,
and light will shine on your ways.
29 When people are brought low and you say, ‘Lift them up!’
then he will save the downcast.
30 He will deliver even one who is not innocent,
who will be delivered through the cleanness of your hands.”
Did you notice the wording…“What YOU decide on will be done…When YOU say…delivered through the cleanness of YOUR hands…”?
Another translation says, “YOU shall declare a thing and it shall be established.”
When I read these promises established in the life of Job (someone following God’s leading under a former, inferior covenant), I get excited and ask myself, “How much more should we expect to experience under a new, unbreakable covenant established, exampled and sealed by the Son of God himself?!
So what do you think? Does God desire for the church to be more than they are right now? Why or Why not?
I’d love for you to leave your thoughts in the comments below.
(For a deeper teaching on the subject of Covenant from God’s perspective, check out my illustrated sermon, Covenant)