Title: True Lies / Topic: Life In Two Realms

Today’s Reading: Job 16; Acts 21; Acts 22; Acts 23

Scripture: Job 16:17-18
17 yet my hands have been free of violence
and my prayer is pure.
18 "O earth, do not cover my blood;
may my cry never be laid to rest!

Observation: Job is in misery, not only due to his circumstances, but also because of his friends who have shifted their words of comfort to words of challenge and even condemnation. He is lamenting his pain and asserting his innocence against his accusers who have told him that he must have done some great evils for this calamity to come upon him. In verse 17 (above), he states his innocence -- "my hands have been free of violence" and "my prayer is pure" -- thus showing his maintaining righteousness in his relationship with man and with God. (This corresponds to the greatest commandments as indicated by Jesus.) However, even though Job was a very righteous man, no one is truly pure and without fault. Every person, by virtue of the sin nature, has blind spots where he acts in self interest to the hurt of others. "There is none righteous, no not one," the Bible tells us. So while Job is one of the best among a race of sinners, and is even commended by God, he is still a sinner.

But note that while my contention is true, Job's prayer in verse 18 is nonetheless answered. He asks, "may my cry never be laid to rest!" And the book of Job in the Bible today is an answer to that prayer. Job's cry is still read and studied, thousands of years after his death. I don't think God would have answered this prayer had Job been a thoroughly wicked man. So Job's statement had a mixture of truth and lies.

Application: True lies. We believe things about ourselves that are not totally true, yet there is an element of truth in them. That's one of the factors that makes life hard to understand and explain. For example, Like Job, we who know the Lord are righteous, for the word tells us that we have been robed in His righteousness. But we are also sinners. Another example is spiritual blessings. We are told we have been seated with Jesus Christ in the heavenly realms and have been given all spiritual blessings in Him. But we experience a reality where we often struggle to just understand what's going on. As Paul said, "We see but a poor reflection as in a mirror." How can both of these things be true? It is because we are living in two realms simultaneously. We live in the earthly, immediate realm and in the heavenly, eternal realm. And there are truths from each realm, and sometimes they clash. The good news is that the eternal realm will prevail. The bad news is that will mostly happen when we die (or get raptured). We are "in the world but not of the world."

Prayer: Lord, help us. Help us to understand more and more of how we are to live here as people of eternity. May we lay hold more and more of the blessings, rights, and privileges that are ours through the provision of grace in the Holy Spirit. Show us more. Help us to live on a higher plain.
This I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.