What is the point of life when it brings nothing but
unrelenting pain? What is the use in
hoping in this life or trying to enjoy anything? Job is asking profound questions based in the
reality that God is God and we are as nothing in the universe. There is something truly remarkable about
that reality and that God notices us at all.
Why should the God of all that is, a universe that is at least 46
billion light years across (that is only the observable part from earth as the
observation point), galaxies, on average, contain 300 billion stars and there
are at least 10,000 galaxies in the universe, know or care about us? What makes us so important to God that our
sins matter, our faith matters, we matter to Him? Sometimes that is comforting, other times,
like this time in Job's life, it is an awful thing to know.
You had to see their rebuttal coming. Jesus says that the Law requires the
testimony of two people to establish anything and offers His own testimony and
the Father's who sent Him. The rebuttal
had to be, "Where is this Father you're talking about." Jesus' response is simple, you don't know
either me or my Father so what difference does that make. Again, what they know isn't so. They don't know Him or from whence He comes
but He does. They refuse the evidence of
His testimony and His works. The woman
at the well had only Jesus' word that He was the one they were looking for and
the fact that He knew she was a loose woman and believed. If it seems unbelievable that the God of all
could notice us, how much more so that He could take on flesh and become one of
us?
Well, okay. Peter
received criticism for having gone to the Gentiles. The leaders of the church didn't realize that
the work of Jesus extended beyond the Jews and their near kin. The Samaritans to whom Philip testified and
who received the Holy Spirit were at least related to the Jews, they could be
counted as the lost sheep of Israel, having split off many centuries
before. The Ethiopian eunuch was a man
who was reading the Scriptures, but this centurion was truly a Gentile, even if
a God-fearer and we don't know about the others who he had gathered that
day. With the giving of the Holy Spirit,
the Lord jumped completely out of the box they had placed Him in and all they
could do was accept it. God suddenly
cared about all people, a new concept for many Jewish thinkers. Maybe all were indeed created in His image,
not just us.
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