Guard My Lips

 

 

Okay, I told you from day one concerning this book of Job in the Bible. I struggle with it. I hope you will continue to follow along as I muddle through it. I pray that there will be vital lessons for you and I concerning our spiritual journey with Christ.  And I pray that I won’t join the “3 friends of Job Club,” who had a skewed idea of who God is. They thought they knew God, but only knew one side of Him.

We just got started in this book, and one thing I have learned already in this study that I never realized before is that Eliphaz’s problem was he thought he could speak for God. This is a sobering revelation for me, because as a teacher, I am obligated to remind people, “Thus saith the Lord!” And if I’m going to proclaim it…..I’d better have it right.

 

No wonder we read in Jas 3:1 My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.

 

Further warnings about selective teaching of the Word of God are found in De 4:2 "You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.

And in Re 22:18,19 For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; 19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

 

Like I said…..sobering thought, but I press on for I cannot help but speak. Ac 4:20 says, “For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard."

And as David lamented in Ps 39:1 "I will guard my ways, Lest I sin with my tongue; I will restrain my mouth with a muzzle, While the wicked are before me." 2 I was mute with silence, I held my peace even from good; And my sorrow was stirred up. 3 My heart was hot within me; While I was musing, the fire burned. Then I spoke with my tongue:

Even the well meaning Eliphaz, who saw the spiritual state of Job spiraling downward felt compelled to speak! Job 4:2b "But who can withhold himself from speaking?”

 

I see so much self-inflicted pain as professing Christians, often out of ignorance, continue to downplay God’s Word as it relates to what constitutes sin and they pick and choose what they will follow. Ho 4:6 reminds us: My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. “

Sin brings pain! I was reminded of this often as I was in the Covid unit for a month. Not that the individual sins of the Covid victims were responsible for their malady, but sin, like Covid brings suffering and sometimes death.

 

So, as a teacher of God’s Word, I pray I am able to shine a light on what constitutes sin according to the Word of God, AND that I am able to point to the only cure for sin…..a personal relationship with Jesus as Lord and Savior.

 

Oh Lord, guard my lips and my pen, that I might not over emphasize Law at the expense of Grace, and Grace at the expense of Law.

 

I have a Bible verse taped to my computer screen so I can see it and pray it before I write my daily blog. It’s from Pr 16:3, “Commit your works to the LORD, And your thoughts will be established.”

 

Lord, help me to ever do this as I teach and preach from Your Word.