January 8

The Eliphaz school or friendship goes like this. Hear about your friend who has been devastated and come just sit with the poor guy for 7 days – saying nothing. Then when you speak, blame him (in this case unjustly so) for everything that has happened. What a guy! I think the church has taken a page from Eliphaz’s manual of how to be a good friend. We kick people when they are down in our attempt to get them out of where they are at. At times we are right when we accuse people (whether to their face, but most likely behind their backs), but what does that prosper anybody? Job needs PRAYER! How about coming along and helping the guy instead of condemning him!? We have got to stop our pride from telling others why they are in their situation and realize that we are in a situation too! There are times that God’s Spirit uses us to help others and bring them out of their situation, but a blanket and general blame isn’t a part of that even if you must issue a rebuke! This guy’s family is dead and you blame him! By the way, Eliphaz blamed Job because he didn’t understand the spiritual realm. We better be sure, before we correct anybody, that we have understanding of the spirit realms interaction with the situation in someone’s life. It seems to me, if we can tell people what is up with them and why they are in the situation they are in, then we ought to be able to pull the curtain off the spirit realm to see what is really going on there. I guess I would call that a precursor to giving someone “advice”.

Jesus said to the disciples (after he calmed the storm), where is your faith? In other words, if you are on the boat with me, trust that the boat isn’t going to sink! Jesus said lets go over to the other side of the lake. That meant the boat was going to get there. The disciples were worried that they wouldn’t make it – that maybe even Jesus would drown. They didn’t trust Jesus to get them there so they called out to Jesus and asked Him to do something. Interesting isn’t it, they didn’t trust Jesus, but they looked to Him for help. Think about that. So if you are in the boat with Jesus and He has to go somewhere, then you are safe – only believe.