Mo Matter What, Who, When, Why, How or Where…God Can Be Trusted!

“No Matter What, Who, When, Why, Where, How…”

Are you are a believer in Christ? Then you need to read and reread the book of Job because you need to know the God you serve and His and your adversary. This is not just a well I will but it is a book that YOU MUST devour until you understand each and every character’s profile but mostly your own and God’s!

Beloved, when you are faced with afflictions and situations that seem ‘out of character’ you will be like Job asking the proverbial question: WHY?  As you wander the book of Job you will unearth this question more than once. Job’s friends have been saying he has sin in his life.  Yet Job has been saying to his friends God Knows All. Job 31: 4 “Does he not see my ways and count all my steps?” God cannot, nor will He ever lie. That is why he can trust God.  Although he has been through the fire and continues to feel the heat, one thing he knows is this: God knows all and therefore no matter how bad life has become and how despondent he is over this strange set of circumstances he will not walk away from his belief that God is God and He knows the reason; this is true EVEN IF WE OR JOB NEVER DOES!

Job knows this about God: He cannot, nor will He ever lie. That is why he can trust God.  Although he has been through the fire and continues to feel the heat, one thing he knows is this: God knows all and therefore no matter how bad life has become and how despondent he is over this strange set of circumstances he will not walk away from his belief that God is God and He knows the reason; this is true EVEN IF WE OR JOB NEVER DOES!

If we fail here, Satan wins.  

God has, as one author noted, “locked himself in” to consistently adhere to the laws He has established and that is why we can trust Him. He cannot lie, change, break a promise or allow his power to be stopped. His word cannot be broken, annulled, and he cannot sin. All of these are true about God and that is what Job is clinging to even as he wonders what all of this is about. We too face these same dilemmas.

James reminds us that when we are in a trial to ask for wisdom and that is what Job is doing. This is where the rubber meets the road and we must decide: will I trust God or not. Ask yourself: Has God been faithful in the past? Then you can trust that he be faithful now and as well in the future.  If we can say yea and amen to this we can know for certain that at some point in time God will end our suffering, our pain or our dilemma. And if perhaps we need to know, He will also reveal its purpose. May you be encouraged to know that as Job wondered you may as well. But, even in his wondering, he still trusted God. You can as well.

 

 

Advertisement

Confidence

John Wilbur Chapman penned the words of the hymn “Our Great Savior.” The words echo the psalmist prayer “Saving, helping, keeping, loving, He is with me to the end.” This is why we can be confident in the Savior who came, lived, died and rose again. He has faced all we have faced yet without sin.

David prayed for protection knowing “friends may fail me, foes assail me, [knowing as the hymn says] He my Savior makes me whole.” He could pray this because he was confident that God would be by his side no matter what came his way. We too can have this same confidence because we have a Savior that will never leave us nor forsake us. He is our source, our foundation. Even when our archenemy, Satan, comes prowling seeking the one he can devour, all we need is to softly whisper the name Jesus and our adversary will flee.

The world may offer trinkets but they will rust and decay but what God provides is trustworthy making us secure. God alone will lead us in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. He is our Good Shepherd whom we can trust. This is why we can say with the psalmist “I have set the LORD continually before me; Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.”

Proverbs gives us clues on true friendship: Note: there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother; or a friend loves at all times. At the end of this precious letter to the Ephesians we come across this statement: “Tychicus, my dear brother and faithful servant in the Lord, will make everything known to you, so that you too may know about my circumstances, how I am doing.” Digging through Paul’s letters we unearth some points of who he was and lessons we can glean from his life.

Tychicus is mentioned in the book of Acts where Paul identifies him as from Asia Minor. It is here that we meet him as Paul introduces him to us as a friend of Trophimus and together they join Paul and his team. Paul entrusted the collections for the saints in Jerusalem to him along with a group of men who accompanied Paul on his way there which gives us another clue to his character. Paul included him in four of his epistles and he accompanied Paul on his journey from Macedonia to Jerusalem where this collection was given. It appears that he was with Paul when he was in prison in Rome and became the courier of the letters of Colossians and Ephesians, Philemon and perhaps 2Corinthians. As a trusted servant, Paul gave him the task of returning the converted runaway slave Onesimus back to Philemon. In Ephesians 6, Paul describes him as a dear brother and faithful servant in the Lord. He includes the word “minister” in his closing of the letter of Colossians.

Tychicus is a picture of a faithful friend and servant; nothing asked was too hard or cumbersome. “Being ‘faithful’ also means that he was loyal to the Word. He was the ideal man therefore, to send to Colosse at a time when heretics were knocking at the door. He taught the Truth accurately and plainly, as one utterly bound to his high commission.” [Dr. Peter Masters] He was proven trustworthy, reliable, loyal and an encourager. Paul sent him to Crete to minister along with Titus and to Ephesus so Timothy could come to Rome and be with Paul for a season. In other words, Tychicus was ready to stand in wherever needed!

As you read scripture and come across names such as Tychicus, take time to ask who this person was. Study their lives and then ask am I a man/woman such as Tychicus? Do I seek not my own light but only the Light of the World, Jesus Christ? Tychicus is an example of one who learned at the feet of Paul and then was competent to teach others as well. He is the epitome of one who found his strength in the Lord as it says vs 10 “be strengthened in the Lord and in  the strength of his power.” Are you a Tychicus?