October 8th

Job 40:3-42:17; Matthew 25:14-46; Psalm 18:43-50

Today we come to the end of the book of Job. We see Job come to the conclusion that questioning God was not necessarily the best course of action that he could have taken and we also see God bless him with prosperity once again.

My first thoughts on the Job reading revolved around the Behemoth. What was this thing? At the end of the day this appears to be one of those picture painting exercises. Not quite an actual creature, the same as the Leviathan, it is more of God trying to focus Job’s mind. Yesterday he talked about the four corners of the universe and here he tries to bring it back to a creature, something that Job can perhaps picture more than the “foundation stone of the world”. Something he can perhaps start to imagine. And this thing was too great for mankind to capture, if it were to feature in Top Trumps then it would be the card that beat all others. People had dominion over every animal but not this one. God putting Job and his friends in their place.

And Job recognises that and ‘fesses up to God that he now knows his place and more importantly he knows God’s true place. 

In the second half of the Matthew reading there is one of those passages that is really well known, but one that we can’t  ignore no matter how often we read it. Whatever we do to the random stranger that we meet in the street we do for Jesus. “When were you hungry, thirsty, naked, cold Lord?” No matter who we meet, no matter where we meet them, everyone has Christ within them. If we ignore their needs then we ignore the needs of Christ. Whether that is the person we walk past while they are being bullied, the teacher who is having a tough day, the work colleague who needs a hand or the random stranger. Having said that Job acknowledges God’s true place, this second reading is also about the place of God because within the heart of the random stranger, the teacher, the colleague or anyone for that matter, is the heart of Christ and if we are to love Him then we have to love them.

Job gave his life back to God, in Matthew Jesus challenges us to give 5 minutes to the needy and therefore 5 minutes to him. What are we going to give to God today?