Live Like Job - Week 7 (Monday Morning Devotion)
This series, written by Pastor Ricky Jacob, who is serving the Winnebago people of Nebraska, looks at the story of Job and helps us discover how to live a life of faith like him.
Need to start at the beginning? Here's week 1
One of the biggest challenges for an outsider who enters the reservation is to not come across as a know-it-all. An outsider naturally comes from and with a completely different worldly perspective.
Even though I entered at the gracious invitation of the Winnebago Tribal Council, who asked the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod to provide a worker who would share his or her faith with their children, this did not make the task at hand any easier. What can a white man teach the Ho-Chunk [Winnebago] tribal members about faith in God? Surely, he would come across as a know-it-all.
At times, the more I share the stories of Mauna and His Sacred Word the more I come across as a know-it-all. I get excited when someone attends a church service or a Bible study and I get to tell them about Creator God and His beloved Son. Often times I play right into their understanding that the ‘white man’ Christian talks about God, as opposed to their talking to God. It is my humble calling to not merely talk about Creator God, nor to merely talk to Creator God, but for Creator God to talk to the hearer so that he or she would be blessed with knowing Creator God as their Redeemer.
Let me draw your attention to a man who did know a thing or two. His name was Job. Job knew something about human nature and he would sacrifice burnt offerings for his children, thinking “perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” More importantly, he knew God; that He is merciful.
God allowed Satan to afflict Job, but Satan must spare Job’s life. Job was afflicted with painful sores from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. It the midst of Job’s suffering he comes to utter the words: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end, he will stand upon the earth.”
Job was blessed by God to know His redeemer, Jesus, who years later would rise victorious from the grave! God’s Spirit instills faith in the hearts and minds as a blessed gift, to people of all ages, tribes, and languages. By the grace of God, Job knew all there is to know about one’s salvation by knowing Jesus as one’s Lord and Savior!
This has been Pastor Ricky Jacob of Jesus Our Savior Lutheran Church and preschool, of Winnebago. I close with the words of Good News of Job: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end, he will stand upon the earth" [Job 19:25 NIV]