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. And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD. (Job 1:9-12 KJV)

Before God leased Satan to the life of Job, there was a question from Satan. He asked to God, “Doth Job fear God for nought?” or “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Even Satan knew Job has respect to God or God knew what this deceiver was trying to do, he challenged God with one question. Even Satan succeed to trick Eve at Garden of Eden, it does not mean that he would succeed this ones. God said in Isaiah 55:8-9, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

As we read verse 11, Satan told God that Job would curse at God due to his life tragedies. Then God gave the permission to Satan to do whatever he wanted to do with Job, except don’t touch Job with his hand. In other words, he didn’t have the right to kill Job. He could try to mix Job’s mind as he did to Eve, but he cannot murder Job’s life.

Why? Why Satan cannot kill Job? Even his family members died from tragedy, God wanted to show that Satan can control over the earth, but he cannot make all the people to worship him. God made humans to make their own decisions. Are you glad that God didn’t make us as robots? Of course, we have fallen from sins and become enemies of God. It doesn’t mean that we have to stay there. God can pick us up and lead into the right path of life, if we’d let Him.

There are some Christians and evangelists who have turned away from God and lead themselves into destruction. Even though I am not a pastor of any church, I’d like to tell you that God is waiting for you to open your heart, so He can live in you and direct you into the right path. If you are TV/radio evangelist and have lead your congregations with the wrong messages of the gospel, you are not too late to turn yourself to God and have the new beginning of Spirit-led revival. The reason you don’t find any prosperity message in my blog, because it is not the main message of the gospel. Even though there is nothing wrong for us to have nice things, Satan can use our material possessions to turn ourselves away from God.

If you’d like to know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, I’d like to encourage you to do two simple things. First, confess your sins and invite Jesus Christ to your life. Paul said in Romans 10:9-11, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” There is no sinner prayer formula. Instead, you just talk to God at where you are now. Secondly, I’d like to encourage you to find a good solid biblical teaching church and Christian friends. They can help you to build strong relationship with God.

Posted by MGJC Web Ministry at 12:01 AM EST

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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 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. (Job 1:6-10 KJV)

I’d like to go back to verse 6 and stop at verse 10 to show you how this debate started. As I stated, Satan started as the messenger of God until he decided to rebellion against God. Now, Satan showed up with the other angels and God asked him where he arrived from. Remember, the Book of Job began after God destroyed the earth with flood of rain and ended before the life of Abraham. As we see, somewhere in Genesis 10 and 12, Job was living on the land of Uz. Notice, he was the wealthy man.

Between Job 1:5 and 1:6, we don’t know how long Satan stayed in the presence of God and why he was there on the first place. As we read in 1:8, it seemed that God started to brag about His servant, Job to Satan. Why did He brag about Job to Satan? It may seem to be awkward, but God wanted Satan to see what he was missing when he turned away from Him.

We often decided to ignore God and do our ways. As a result, we may miss the opportunity to receive blessing from God. We may have decided to live with the world system. Yet, it is not enough to fulfill our dreams. In Philippians 4:19 says, “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” If you’d like to have successful live in this earth until Jesus would come and take you home, live your life for Him and not for the world. There are many people, even those who called themselves as Christians, live as the people in the secular world. Even though they may have multimillionaire of houses, they are spiritually poor.

As we see Satan’s respond, he first questioned God with “Does Job fear God.” This format of question is similar to he questioned to Eve in Genesis 3. Satan tried to trick with our minds by twisting what God said to us as he did to Eve. Although Eve failed into the devil’s trap, we don’t need to fall into his. We need to rely on God’s Words on a daily basis to strength our faiths. If Satan would doubt on you, you would need to start quoting the Scriptures. This is why our personal quality time with God is important. Not only you’d build your personal relationship with God, it also gives the strength to resist the devil’s trick.

If you’d like to know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, I’d like to encourage you to do two simple things. First, confess your sins and invite Jesus Christ to your life. Paul said in Romans 10:9-11, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” There is no sinner prayer formula. Instead, you just talk to God at where you are now. Secondly, I’d like to encourage you to find a good solid biblical teaching church and Christian friends. They can help you to build strong relationship with God.

Posted by MGJC Web Ministry at 12:01 AM EST

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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. (Job 1:6-7 KJV)

There was a time when all the sons of God came together to the presence of God. We don’t have the description of their conversations with God in Heaven. The “sons of God” may have been angels. This also means Jesus and Satan were there. The Bible doesn’t give us the number of heavenly councils at the meeting, but we do know that there are thousands of thousands in the heavenly place.

One of sons of God was Satan. The Open Bible says, “Satan is the noun translated “adversary” or “Satan.” The adversaries can be human as in Num. 22:22 and 1 Sam. 29:4. At times God is the adversary of humans (1 Kin. 11:14). The superhuman adversary, or Satan, is seen in only three passages in the OT, the most familiar of which is Job 1 and 2. In these passages Satan is the adversary who obstructs or accuses. There is some question whether the Satan is a role being played by a supernatural being or whether the title refers to a particular being. In any case, the Satan is not all-powerful and is subject to God’s rebuke.”

We often don’t recognize his name is changeable to Santa. “Originally, the Santa Claus concept came from the pagan Egyptian god, Bes, a rotund, gnome-like personage who was the patron of little children. Bes was said to live at the North Pole, working year-round to produce toys for children who had been good and obedient to their parents. In Dutch, he was called "Sinter Klaas." Dutch settlers brought the custom to America. In Holland and other European countries, the original Santa Claus was actually a grim personage who traversed the countryside, determined to find out who really had been "naughty or nice." Those who had been acting up were summarily switched. The association of Santa Claus with snow, reindeer, and the North Pole suggests Scandinavian or Norse traditions of the Yuletide season. (In Babylonia, also, the stag [reindeer] was a symbol of the mighty one, Nimrod. The symbolism of antlers worn on the head of a noble leader would demonstrate his prowess as a hunter, and thereby, influence people to follow him.)” (Read Should a Christian Celebrate Christmas?.)

We often do not recognize Satan’s deception because he plays like a nice of God’s angel, such as Santa Claus. The Bible tells us that he wants to be worshipped (Isaiah 14:12-14). Right now, Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) is the most popular as the secular music because it blends with the worldly music tunes. It’s also sad that most Christian leaders preach more on Christian life value and prosperity messages than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Since Satan succeed his first accomplishment at Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:1-6), he tried to attack Job’s life and all the humankind. He is called the adversary or accuser because he actively looks for people to attack with temptation (I Peter 5:8-9) and because he wants to make people hate God. We will see that Job didn’t lose his faith in God as Jesus did in the wilderness for 40 days (Matthew 4:1-11).

Let me ask you a question. Are you having difficult time to free from temptation? Maybe you have addiction to TV, Internet and magazine pornography; or hungry for entertainment that you have no room for God to fulfill in your life. I’d like to tell you today that you do not need to go through horrifying addiction or hungry for the media to feed you. Only Jesus can help you to fulfill your dream with His purpose. Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”

If you’d like to know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, I’d like to encourage you to do two simple things. First, confess your sins and invite Jesus Christ to your life. Paul said in Romans 10:9-11, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” There is no sinner prayer formula. Instead, you just talk to God at where you are now. Secondly, I’d like to encourage you to find a good solid biblical teaching church and Christian friends. They can help you to build strong relationship with God.

Posted by MGJC Web Ministry at 12:01 AM EST

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There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil. And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters. His substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east. And his sons went and feasted in their houses, every one his day; and sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them. And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually. (Job 1:1-5 KJV)

We all have problems in our lives. Whether we’d face the death of our family members or face financial problems to take care of our families. In this new series, we will look Job’s life. We will spend several weeks to focus on Job 1-2. In these two chapters of Job, there are many important lessons we can apply in our lives. In later of Job 1, we will see how Satan attacks Job’s life and how Job would respond to his miserable situation.

The Hebrew word for Job is ÕIyowb { ee-yobe’}, which means persecuted. Most biblical scholars believed that he lived in early part of Patriarch Era. As we read Job 1:1-5, he was righteous man and had reverence for God. Also, he was the wealthiest person with several farm animals and ten children. He and his family lived in the land of Uz, near Canaan. Even though his seven sons were not respect for him and God, Job continued to pray and fast for all of his children.

We, too, have responsibilities to take care our families. Being Christians mean that we need to take positions as priests. I Peter 2:9 says, “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light…” There are some Christian families do not take this verse seriously. As we read 1 Peter 2:9, it does not only apply to priest in the church building. Apostle Paul said in I Corinthians 6:19, “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?”

In later chapter of his book, Job will face several tragedies in his life. But God will not leave him there. We will see how God turns Job life 360 degrees.

Often, many Christians want wealthier lives by listening to some TV and radio evangelists. Even though we can be rich by God, He would like to have personal relationship with each of us. God did not bring His Son, Jesus, to show the way for us to become worldly riches, but relationship. Job 1:21 says, “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” Our treasures are in Heaven, not in this world.

Posted by MGJC Web Ministry at 12:01 AM EST

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