The Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.” (Job 1:8)
Job was identifiable. Only God could make this determination, but as He looked at every man, like Noah, God identified Job as the godliest man on the earth. Quite a distinction.
Job would not have considered himself so. Because part of such righteousness is the greatest humility. Job thought of himself, without question, as an average man with God, who was simply pursuing and loving God and seeking to be pleasing to Him. As Spurgeon said, ""The greater the saint, the less he thinks of himself."" But God defined Job as “blameless and upright.”
BLAMELESS
... means to be complete, without sin, free of guilt. It is the idea that there are no areas in one’s life that can be accused.
UPRIGHT
... carries the idea of being straight and upstanding. When you stand him against the doorframe of truth, he measures up. ""In conformity with justice, law, or morality"" one commentator says.
Quite a man.
Where did this come from with Job? It sprang, God said, from one motivation and one action. He was a man who was ""fearing God (the motivation) and turning away from evil"" (the continual action).
His awe and reverence for God caused him to walk away from anything that was not of God or not like God. There was a spiritual circumspection about Job’s life. A carefulness. A sensitivity and resolve regarding all that was ungodly. Could this be said of us?
So, here are some questions to help us toward greater godliness:
If I fear God like that, I'm on the path to greater intimacy and greater usefulness with God.
Our goal, perhaps, should not to be the godliest, but to be as godly as we can be, for His glory. But, somewhere in this world today there is a man of whom God says, ""There is no one like him on the earth.""
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Jealousy is always viewed in humans as a horribly destructive trait. Daniel Webster described it in his original 1828 dictionary as “the apprehension of superiority.” For instance, a person is jealous when they fear that someone has taken something that they want or may think they deserve for themselves; a position, an affection, an opportunity.
But is jealousy always wrong? Is it possible to be jealous for the right things? Is there a holy jealousy?
