June 9, 2023
Job allowed fear to enter his life.
Mark 4:36-40
New Living Translation
36 So they took Jesus in the boat and started out, leaving the crowds behind (although other boats followed). 37 But soon a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water. 38 Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?” 39 When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Silence! Be still!” Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm. 40 Then he asked them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
Earlier today I was reading about Job and the problems he faced in his life with all that happened to him. He had seven sons and three daughters, 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, 500 she asses, and a very great household. But he also had one other thing he had fear. So often we read the scriptures and miss the subtle things. God had put a hedge around Job that hedge was God himself. The Bible says he continually offered sacrifices for his children in Job 1:4-5. “It may be that my sons have sinned.” He had the fear they had sinned.
Fear got into Job as it did with the disciples we read above. Faith replaces fear and conversely fear can replace faith. Which is better for the believer? The scriptures say Job continually offered sacrifices out of fear something would happen to his children.
Satan is the author of fear in our lives, God is a good God, Satan is the enemy. The scriptures tell us the hedge was placed around Job by God and Job allowed the hedge to be breached because of his fear.
Asbury Chapel 