God as All Powerful

Today the book of Job was brought up during discussion after Church. The story goes something like this: There had never been a more righteous man than Job.  He was perfect in every way and was blessed with many children, many wives, much cattle and lots of money and houses.  Then one day the Devil and God got into a fight.  The Devil said to God: "Job is only righteous because he has all these blessings - he would curse you if he did not have them."  God turns to the Devil and says "You're Wrong!"  He then proves this by killing all of Job's children, wives, and cattle.  He then gives Job a series of horrible skin afflictions.  All throughout this Job's friends council him to confess what he has done wrong.  Clearly God must be punishing Job for doing something wrong.  Job refuses.  He continues to praise God. In the end Job gets back more than he had before.

Job's friend's clearly believe that Job is at fault because all of his good things were taken away. They are saying: God blesses you with material things for faithfulness and curses you with loss of material things.  This is an old belief but we retool it so that it seems new - seems like it might be a correct belief.  We now say that we can pray our way into prosperity.  If you work hard enough, go to the right Church, donate enough of your money then God will bless you with more money and more things.  This God is a pay to play God.  This God is actually not very powerful.  The fact is that if we have to "earn" our blessings by being pious or by believing the right thing or by saying the right prayer than we are making believe that we are in control of our blessings. 

This Gospel that preaches there are things that you have to do/say/be in order tI had a very interesting lecture after Church today on the relationship between Christians / Christianity / the Church and Politics / US Politics.  I have lots of thoughts on that, but I think I'm going to wait to see how the series plays out before blogging about it.o achieve material blessings is a gospel that makes sense in this world and is easy to believe.  However, it is not the Gospel that is outlined in the Bible or the one that Jesus talked about.  The book of Job clearly illustrates that what happens to us here on earth is not related to our righteousness. We cannot see material wealth or lack thereof as either praising or punishing our faith.  Believing that God rewards our faithfulness with material recompense is heresy.    It may not seem like it but as soon as we begin to believe that our faithfulness will be rewarded with material goods we are taking God's power and claiming it as our own.  God is all powerful.  It is much easier for us to believe that we the have power to affect what happens to us.  God is utterly reponsible.

I will not stop here because we are also utterly responsible.  As individuals we are in complete control of ourselves.  God is responsible for what happens to us, but we are responsible for living our lives in the most faithful way possible no matter the circumstances.  There is an inherent tension in being a Christian, in believing in God at all.  The tension begins with recognizing that God is completely responsible for our lives. Did I ask to be born as Maryann Philbrook? No.  But here I am.  At the same time I, as an individual, have complete freedom to choose what I do - I am the only one that is responsible for living my life.  This responsibility is overwhelming but with God's grace it is possible be faithful. 

Job's friends didn't get the point.  Job did.  Job knew that God was faithful to him in all situations.  Job was faithful to God in all situations.  Job saw that his responsibility was to be faithful in the situation that he found himself.  

Many people preach the Gospel of salvation through works or salvation through some other means.  I would like to offer that salvation comes through God - through recognizing God's supreme power and by recognizing our supreme power.  We can be God's love here on Earth.  That is a powerful thing to be.