THE BLESSING OF THE LORD !

THE BLESSING OF THE LORD ! If Job had been walking in faith where his children were concerned, he would have made one sacrifice for them and then said, "Father, I'm rolling all of my care of my children over on You. From this moment on, I'll never worry about them again. You said You'd take care of them and I believe You. You said they'd be BLESSED and I trust You to keep Your WORDS." Then, instead of staying home and making a religious fuss over them, he could have showed up at their parties and said, "Hey ! I came down here to spend some time with you. Let's have some fun together--- and while we're at it, I'll Teach You Some Things the Lord has taught me about living in THE BLESSING." When the devil brought Job's situation up before The LORD, he wasn't sharp enough to pick up on all that. All he knew was this man had THE BLESSING on him (the devil described it as a "hedge around him") that was producing healing power, children, wealth and success. He wanted to get his hands on it so he said: Doth Job fear God for nothing ? Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he has on every side ? Thou has BLESSED the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. But put forth thy hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse thee to thy face. And The LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he has is in thy power; only upon himself put not for thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of THE LORD (Job 1:9-12). Those verses tell us two important things. First, they reveal that the sin the devil wanted Job to commit was the sin of cursing God. He'd already been working on Job to get him thinking that his children were cursing God. Job's wife eventually sided with Satan and said, "Why don't you just curse God, and die !" The devil figured out that if Job cursed God, that hedge around him would fall, he'd lose THE BLESSING and the devil could steal everything he had. But Job never did that. He made a lot of other mistakes. He said more wrong things than he did right, during that season of his life. But he never cursed God. That's why the Bible says, "In all this did not Job sin with his lips." The second thing we learned from these verses is that God didn't say to the devil: "Here, I put Job in your hands. Do whatever you want to him." The fact that the devil even suggested it just shows how foolish he is. God wasn't about to stretch out His hand against Job. He never agreed to do what the devil suggested. What God said to the devil was, "Behold, all that he has is in your power." Today, we don't use the word behold very much. We don't walk down the street and said, "Did you behold that car ? Oh, behold ! Isn't it beautiful ?" So we don't really know what the word means. But if you look it up in any of the translations--- Hebrew, Greek, English, Spanish or any other translation-- you'll find out it always means, "Look and see. Wake up and pay attention." God was saying to the devil, "Job has already opened the door to you." Just like many of you have already opened the door to Satan in your life; God was just telling the devil the truth. Job had already broken down his protective hedge with his own fear. He had already put himself into the devil's hand. God wasn't going to lie about that. As Much As He loved Job, God wasn't going to be dishonest because of him. That's just not the way God works. He's the truth teller, not the liar. Once the devil realized Job had clipped the power of THE BLESSING in his life, he went after Job and caused all kinds of trouble. He killed Job's children. He killed his Cattle. He stripped the man of his wealth and hit his physical body with sickness. Then, he brought Job's good friends around to tell him that God did it all to him. All of that was designed to pressure Job into cursing God. But even though he said some foolish, unbelieving things while all that was going on, he stood up and shouted, "I don't care if God were to kill me ! I'd serve Him anyway. in all Job said, concerning his birth, cursing the day that he was born; he still held to his integrity concerning God !