“Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them. And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth [to shun or avoid] evil? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought? Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.” (Job 1:6-11)
As many times as I have read these verses, I still wonder every time if Satan goes before God to accuse us by name as he did with Job. We know from Revelation 12:10 that he is “…the accuser of our brethren…, which accused them before our God day and night.” Let that sink in for a moment. I have to ask myself, am I living in such a way that Satan would bother mentioning my name? He brought up Job’s name to God with the accusation that Job’s worship and devotion were only because of the great wealth God had blessed him with. If you’re familiar with the story, you know that God allowed Satan to afflict Job, allowed him to take away everything but his life.
Life is rarely easy or fair, and it’s likely that every person is going through some kind of trial at any given time. Trials are to strengthen us, to prune away what isn’t pleasing to the Lord in our life, to show us “what we’re made of,” either that we’re stronger than we realize in some ways or that we’re not as fully surrendered in other ways as we might think we are. God doesn’t have to prove anything at all to Satan, but Satan basically told God that Job only worshiped Him because he had been blessed with so much. God already knew Job would pass the test, but Satan didn’t. So not only did it foil Satan’s theory, but it proved to Job that God was – IS – still worthy of his praise and devotion, without material things, even without his children and his health. That is encouraging to me: to think that God is “counting on me,” in a sense, to prove to Satan that my Heavenly Father IS worthy of my praise, my thankfulness, my loyalty and devotion, no matter what! I pray that I’ll be worthy of having my name mentioned before the Lord as one He can depend on to be put to the test.
“For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound [contribute greatly to] to the glory of God. For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (II Corinthians 4:15-18)
Quiet Contemplations 