What in Godliness Worth? (Job 1

 What is Integrity worth? Our wealth must be based on the fear of God and the intolerance of sin. Wealth is based in blessing not is one's abilities alone. Clement of Alexandria wrote, “For not a single thing that we posses is properly our own. We are properly owners of one possession, that is godliness. Death does not rob us of this when it over takes us.” (Ante Nicene Fathers 2:77) Our godliness must extent past ourselves and to family and those around us.

Each year all people, angels, etc stand before the divine in Judgment. The accuser first stands in judgment against Israel. The Righteous are exalted before the Lord. True integrity and godliness cannot be revealed until that is all one has. Honor is their relative and Japanese prefer suicide over dishonor.( honor and integrity are very different.)

Chocolate tastes good because it is both sweet and bitter. All power is given by God to bless or affliction. Satan is given power to purify, judge and tempt; however the Lord is the one who afflicts. He is the author of destruction and provision as Chrysostom wrote, “ Why did God provide us with our goods? He did not do so because we deserved them. God was absolutely free to grant us only affliction.”  (Patristische Texte und Studien 35:47-48) Life is a gift from the devine and those who put their faith in Messiah have eternal hope.

Health is different from wealth for the mind and emotions are bound to the body. (I have anxiety because of my high blood pressure.) The accuser may touch our body, but cannot take our life for that power is given to the angel of death. A true friend must comfort but not speak to the aflicted. Birth and death are before the Lord on equal footing. There is darkness in joy . A mother is haunted with joy of her children  Death of the righteous gives final tranquility. The Lord gives Light to the poor. Our completion is hidden.

Why do we speak? We have give wisdom to others to keep silent when we are in pain. Our faith in God though the messiah is our assurance as Micah 7:8-9 states

“Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy.

Though I fall I will rise;

Though I dwell in darkness, the LORD is a light for me.

 I will bear the indignation of the LORD

Because I have sinned against Him,

Until He pleads my case and executes justice for me.

He will bring me out to the light,

And I will see His righteousness.”

NASU

Our hope is on the Lord Yeshua the Messiah. The arm of flesh destroys the stupid as anger destroys the soul. Humanity does not seek justice. Fortune is a fickle mistress. What makes us human is our suffering. Our only recourse is the Lord. We must come before Him in humility as John Calvin preaches from his Sermons by Master John Calvin Upon the Book of Job in his sermon “The Seventeenth Sermon. Which is the Fourth upon the Fourth Chapter, and the First upon the first Chapter.” this:

And therefore let us not think we lose our time, when we set our minds upon this lesson :that is to wit , to know that our life is nothing, and that a hundred thousand deaths menace us in the chief lustiness that we have here by-low , when any of our kinsfolk or friends depart , or if we see any coarse go to burial : we have the wit to say, And what is mans life? (Line34-40 Pg 75)

 the final affliction is sweet to the righteus who will be in heaven Gregory the Great in his “Morals on the Book of Job 7.17” wrote, “For the soul is increasingly straitened as heavenly aspersions are enlarged. When it perceives how great is the sweetness of the eternal land, it fervently loves for the sake of the present lives bitter taste.” (A Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church Anterior to the Division of the East and West 18:375-76) our suffering must be presented before the Lord alone.

All men are solders and slave to shadows . We find our lot in nights of pain. Suffering is not hidden by rest. People scorn them. In our suffering we should speak before the Lord. We must give tranquility to those who are suffering. We must ask what is man. If we sin, we sin before God alone.

God does what is righteousness. If His children sin, He will punish them. When we ask for grace, He will give it. We really know nothing because we live in the shadows. Thos whose confence is in there own hands and  mind fail. Can man be just by himself before the Almighty? God is all wise and strong. He destroys the moutains and could ordain the sun not to rise. Fate is bound to the angels whom He controls. If we are pure, we don't need pity.

When we suffer, we question our integrity. Pain happens. One cannot forget his suffering