… he feared God and shunned evil.
Summary: Looking for an example of a good father brings us to Job in the Old Testament. Job understands both God and human nature well.
Aside from God himself, the best example of a good father in the Bible is Job. Job had seven sons and three daughters. “He was the greatest man among all the people of the East” (Job 1: 3). Yet he wasn’t great because of his wealth. He was great because he honored God.
I love the Bible’s description of how he cared for his children:
“His sons used to hold feasts in their homes on their birthdays, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. When a period of feasting had run its course, Job would make arrangements for them to be purified. Early in the morning, he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, ‘Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.’ This was Job’s regular custom.” (Job 1: 4-5)
In this snapshot of Job’s world, we see a man who loves his God and his children. He assumes that they are innocent, but Job takes no chances. If there is even the slightest possibility that they have sinned, and if that sin is only a fleeting resentment toward God invisible to the world but present in their hearts, Job wants to make sure that they are atoned with God.
Here is a man who understands human nature. Job is also a man who understands God. Job’s status as the “greatest man among all the people of the East” is not an excuse to presume God’s indulgence. Job is humble. He fears God and deeply loves his children.
Are there any parallels between Job and God as our Father? Yes, several.
Like Job, God has many children.
Just as Job is concerned about sin separating his children from God, our Father is concerned about the same thing.
Job understands that unclean people cannot stand before God and he wants his children to be right with God. Our Father wants the same thing (1 John 1:3).
We do not know whether Job lived before or after Moses. It is likely he lived before the Law was given to Moses by God. Yet even then, like Melchizedek, the “priest of God Most High” (Genesis 14:18), Job understood that there is a price to be paid when we break God’s Law. God also knows this because he made the law (Exodus 31:18).
Job understands that to pay for even the slightest infraction of the law requires a blood sacrifice. The sacrifice is the outward expression of inward repentance (Micah 6: 6-8). And so Job purifies his children as well as offering a sacrifice.
Finally, we see Job foreshadow Christ on the cross. The burnt offerings he offers to God were living things. Their blood is spilled, their lives taken from them, and their bodies are burned in the fire as a payment for sin.
Job knows that he can’t buy God’s love. He understands that offering burned meat on the fire does not guarantee anything. What we are seeing is a man who Scripture describes as “blameless and upright.” (Job 1:1) He fears God and shuns evil (ibid), and because he fears God and loves his children, his whole nature demands that he do everything in his power to extend his relationship with God to his children.
God does what Job cannot do. He offers a sacrifice that can restore all of his children to a right relationship with himself. God’s sacrifice is able to do what Job’s sacrifice could not do. As Paul explains, thousands of years after Job offered sacrifices for his children:
”There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3: 22-24)
Application: We need to understand God’s Word so we can share it with our children.
Food for Thought: How can we apply Job’s example in our lives today?
Job knew that our sin separated us from God. Scripture tells us this in Isaiah 59:2
“But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.”
Sin is born in our thoughts and hearts. Sometimes we purposefully indulge ourselves, and sometimes the thoughts run away in our minds unconsciously. I find the second one happens more than I like.
Mark 7:20-23 Then he continued, “It’s what comes out of a person that makes a person unclean, because it’s from within, from the human heart, that evil thoughts come, as well as sexual immorality, stealing, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, cheating, shameless lust, envy, slander, arrogance, and foolishness. All these things come from inside and make a person unclean.”
In Job’s example, he wanted all sin to be atoned for, even the possibility of sin. I liken it to a great rock that just a trickle of water works its way inside and freezes, causing the rock to crack in half. Sin is a lot like that. Job wasn’t “covering his bases” but rather coming before God with an earnest, open heart and saying, “I recognize the sinful nature of people, and I don’t want anything to be between us.”
I believe in doing this same thing each day in prayer with the Lord, and asking Him to reveal the sins you have not recognized. The condition of your heart before God is the important part.
Chris,
Your illustration of the crack in the rock and freezing water is well said! That is how mountains are leveled and turned into gravel. Asking God to show us the “cracks” in our heart may not be something we want to know, but we need to know.
Thank you for your devotion today. And great stuff Chris.
I will only add that like Job, we can see sin as serious and realize our need to be in right relationship with God. We can be grated for the cross and love our God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind. In loving God we can seek to obey Him and live for Him today.
Thank you, Rich.
Job is interesting. He is a mix of stubborn commitment and humble self awareness.
How can we apply Job’s example in our lives today?
On at least two occasions Paul was inspired to write “ be imitators of me.”
1 Corinthians 4:16, I urge you, then, be imitators of me.
1 Corinthians 11:1, Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.
Acts 1:8 Tells us, believers will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon us. And we will be Christ’s witnesses, telling people about Him everywhere – in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
Paul, who has and is continuing in his process of transformation, is telling me, to live Acts 1:8 as he is.
Job like many great, faithful saints God has placed throughout scripture is another person we can learn from. What we do, our daily lives and how we conduct ourselves speak louder than words. I personally need all the help I can get and Job is not Christ but is a great example of the high standard we seek as we mature in Christ.
Thanks Ron!
I like the “be imitators” connection. That is a great teaching tool.
Well we’re in good company, God likes it to. We are far short of our goal, but at least it is a start and Jesus will be doing all the work if we will simply get out of the way and allow Him to serve others.
It is a great question Jeff!!!
Blessings,
Ron