Jaw-dropping Jewels about Jesus
Rarely does Jesus, God the Son, do exactly what we expect of Him. It seems odd that He so frequently surprises us, given that He never changes. Hebrews 13:8 makes this absolute statement: “Jesus the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Still, though He is blessedly consistent in His goodness, Jesus does unforeseen things. Even when He does what is expected, He does not always do it in the way that we anticipate. Let us join with Jesus on a jaw-dropping journey. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
As we have seen, the persistence of our Lord is not diminished by His sometimes seeming silence (Revelation 8:2-6). Just as we can learn from His actual silence (as we studied last week from Revelation 8:1 and other relevant passages), we are to learn from divine delays. For example, Job suffered the loss of almost everything that mattered in his life. He was perplexed, as any of us would be in those circumstances. Finally, Job 40:1 says, “moreover, the LORD answered Job.” Does that mean that Job received answers explaining his predicament? No. Here, “answered” simply means “responded,” but no answers were forthcoming. Instead, God asked a question: Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct Him?” (verse 2a). Job wisely chose silence (verses 3-5) and repentance (42:6). Two thoughts come immediately to mind. First, although God did not provide an answer at that time, He did speak to Job. God was not absent during Job’s deepest distress. Second, although Job did not receive an answer, he did receive grace. His experience was like that of Paul, who testified that the Lord told him, “My grace is sufficient for thee” (I Corinthians 1:9a). In the midst of any affliction, then, we must see any good thing as a gift from God, for grace is simply God giving good things to us. He persists in providing for us.