I have searched the Lord's heart on "death to self" or "dying to self" now for quite a long time, and this is what He has shown me: Job was a man who had completely died to a selfhood apart from God. He was alive only to a God that he knew to be his friend and through whose goodness alone, he was clothed with His righteousness. And if you think that Job didn't know about that, please read and then resolve within yourself to once and forever not know yourself or any other person after the flesh, but only after His spirit within them!
If you remove the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, then…your light will break out like the dawn, and your recovery will speedily spring forth; and your righteousness will go before you; the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry, and He will say, 'Here I am.'
If we do not put on the righteousness of God, everything in our lives will run out. The same as happened to the prodigal. Our finances, our health, our wisdom, our strength, whatever we considered to be ours. We have to return to our Father/our Origin and be clothed upon with Himself, His life, His Righteousness, His garment, and live in His abundance of life and everything else. Where does this returning (repentance) happen? In our minds, our awareness, consciousness, our thinking and eventually the words we speak and the works we do. For us to enjoy the full benefits of our Father’s house we need to have our consciences purged by fire of the dead works of our wandering-years and the resulting shame and guilt. When we return, we find that our Father has all the time been waiting for us, and He comes running towards us with outstretched arms and is not even interested in us confessing our sins or becoming his servants. Why? Because in His mind we are, has been and always will be His very own beloved children, made in His image and likeness. If that was not the absolute, unshakeable TRUTH, Adam and Eve would have been put to death immediately, and God would just have had to start all over with creating another man. The blood of goats and bulls could never take away sin, and it never did. Our God is terribly fearsome in His fiery Holiness and I really do not think we have even caught a tiny glimpse of that yet. Just think about all the preparations and coverings and sacrifices needed for service in and entering the tabernacle of Moses! All to allow frail human beings like us to come into His Manifested Presence/a Pillar of Fire/Thunderings and Lightnings. In His presence no sin can be and no sinful person can ever stand – we all would be fried to crisp and ashes immediately. Think about it. After Adam and Eve sinned, they knew they’ve had it! They had lost their light covering and were desperately trying to cover themselves with something so as not to be annihilated immediately! Yet, here comes God as usual, in the cool of the day (hear what these words are saying of Him who is a consuming fire, eternal burning) and He seeks them out! He calls for them, as if they had never sinned! And as He covers them so that they might be able to stand upright in His presence again, they found out that He has had a covering prepared for them – His own spotless Life Blood, Lamb, Jesus Christ slain before the foundation of the earth. The cross on which sin died in the heart of Father God even before He made man.
Now, take another look at Job: There is what God says and continues to say about Job right through until the end. Then we also read what satan says about him, his friends, and Job himself. God’s word about Job – to satan in the heavenly court, to Job’s friends and eventually to Job himself, and Job's own words about himself and God somehow line up (agree):
In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.
God: 1:8 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”
God: 2:3 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason.” (He has kept his faith in me despite the fact that you persuaded me to let you harm him without any cause.)
Eliphaz: 5:8 “If I were you, I would go to God and confess my sins (present my case) to him.
Job: 6:29 “Desist now, let there be no injustice; even desist, my righteousness is yet in it.”
Bildad: 8:6 If you are pure and upright, surely now He would rouse Himself for you and restore your righteous estate.
Zophar: 11:4 you have said, ‘My teaching is pure, and I am innocent in your eyes.’
Job: 12:4 I am a joke to my friends, the one who called on God and He answered him; the just and blameless man is a joke.
Job: 13:15 Nevertheless, I am going to argue my case with Him. This at least will be in my favour, that I am not godless, to be instantly rejected from His presence. …This is my case: I know that I am righteous.
Eliphaz: 15:14 What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?
Job: 16:17 Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high. My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God; on behalf of a man he pleads with God as one pleads for a friend.
Job: 17:13 and 14 (Now remember here that the name Job also means Who is my Father?) If I say to corruption (death), ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother’ or ‘My sister,’ where then is my hope – who can see any hope for me? (So many think that death has fathered them and is their salvation! But not so Job.)
Bildad: 18:5 The truth remains that if you do not prosper, it is because you are wicked.
Job: 19:3 Ten times now you have declared me a sinner.
Job: 19:25 But as for me [Job] I know that my Redeemer lives …this body shall see God. Then He will be on my side. Yes, I shall see Him, not as a stranger, but as a friend! What a glorious hope!
Eliphaz: 22:4 Is it because you are good that He is punishing you? Not at all! It is because of your wickedness! Your sins are endless!
Job: 23:10 He knows every detail of what is happening to me; and when He has examined me, He will pronounce me completely innocent – as pure as solid gold!
Bildad: 25:4 How can a mere man stand before God and claim to be righteous?
Job: 27:2 I vow… that as long as I live …my lips shall speak no evil… I will never, never agree that you are right; until I die I will vow my innocence. I am not a sinner – I repeat it again and again. My conscience is clear for as long as I live.
Job: 29:14 …righteousness was my clothing.
Job: 31:35 Look, I will sign my signature to my defence; now let the Almighty show me that I am wrong; let Him approve the indictments made against me by my enemies.
32:1 The three men refused to reply further to Job because he kept insisting on his innocence. Then Elihu became angry because Job refused to admit he had sinned and to acknowledge that God had just cause for punshing him.
Elihu: 32:11 I have waited all this time … but not one of them has convinced Job that he is a sinner, or has proved that he is.
Elihu: 33:8 You have said it in my hearing … again and again. ‘I am pure, I am innocent; I have not sinned.’
Elihu: 34:7 Who else is as arrogant as Job?
God to Eliphaz: 42:8 I am angry with you and your two friends, for you have not been right in what you have said about me, as my servant Job was … and my servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer on your behalf, and won’t destroy you as I should because of your sin [which they insisted on they have] your failure to speak rightly concerning my servant Job.
How did Job overcome his friend's (acting as the accuser here) accusations and ended up being blessed so outrageously by God again? By having a clear conscience before God and men, by clothing himself with righteousness, and casting down the arguments and speculations of proud men against the knowledge of God’s own righteousness, goodness and kindness [shown toward men in Christ Jesus].
Job stood firm on his knowledge of God, the rock of his salvation.
Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb [slain before the foundations of the earth], and by the word of their testimony [again and again and not agreeing with the accuser]; and they loved not their lives unto the death [even though He slay me, I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER LIVES AND I SHALL SEE HIM IN MY FLESH].
Most of us are at a breaking point: we have run out of our own resources (the inheritance of life that we received at our natural birth). We need healing in our bodies, finances, restoration in relationships… our oil has been depleted… we need life and that in abundance in every area of our lives. And everyone around us, our families, friends, nations, are all in dire need of Abundant God-kind of Life.
We have to understand that what we are contending for is the double portion, which belongs to the eldest son, the First Born! Therefore it is crucial for us to enter fully into the life of Jesus Christ, God Himself. He is the First Born. And then we receive of His fullness all spiritual blessings! Everything! And this is something we have to do ourselves. The Spirit within us bears witness that we are the sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father. As He is, so are we. Clothe yourself with the Righteousness of God. Agree with who and what God says you are. Do it today! The prodigal came to his senses – his right mind, the mind of Christ. Paul says: we have the mind of Christ. Have you come to your right mind, yet?
Colossians 1:15 -23 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behaviour. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, [and I, Annalize Mouton], have become a servant.Scripture quotations mainly from The Living Bible
Illustration: from William Blake's Illustrations of the Book of Job
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