Good morning everyone,

James 5:11-Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

I always read this passage and thought at times, "how does losing everyone and everything in your life and getting it back merciful", especially considering Job loved God and wasn’t living in sin?

But the Lord wanted to show the devil and Job that His relationship with Job was not based on being duty bound, but Job loved God for who He was, and knew even though he hadn’t been living in sin, that the Lord owed Him nothing, it was all mercy! Do you know God like that? Or does He owe you because you’ve suffered for Him or have been faithful somewhere for a long time? Because the last thing we should want to do is play a "ledger game" with God, because we would never come out of debt! Job knew his wife was God’s mercy, his kids, riches, prestige, etc.

When we live by duty and not relationship we look to put God and people in our "debt", though never realizing that we can’t pay our own. That’s what provokes us to seek mercy and give it, because we know what we should get from God if He was fair and not merciful! I pray that we would stop making God duty bound to us, but count all His goodness AND sufferings as His mercy. So remember Christ and the cross, not as a duty He owed, but mercy in love, knowing we could never have it without Him.

In His Love, Ld

On Nov 27, 2012 9:12 AM, "eldoret gentry" <eldorets> wrote: