Job chapter 9 verses 33 – 35 (NIV)
If only there were someone to mediate between us, someone to bring us together, someone to remove God’s rod from me, so that his terror would frighten me no more. Then I would speak up without fear of him, but as it now stands with me, I cannot.
1 Timothy chapter 2 verses 3-6 (NIV)
This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time.
I can’t imagine being in Job’s position. He’d lost his family, his health and his livelihood pretty much in one fell swoop and he doesn’t know why. His wife, who has also lost her family, is bitter and unable to support him, in fact she tells him to curse God and die. His friends are of little help either, since they feel he must have done something wrong. Poor Job! His emotions and feelings are understandably all over the place, but he never blames God. He wonders if he has done something wrong, but he is in such despair that he seems to be afraid of God. What we need to remember is that it is Satan that is behind all of this. I’m sure that it is his whispers telling Job that he can no longer approach God in worship as he had done before. Satan doesn’t want him to continue any sort of relationship with God. Perhaps that’s why Job wishes there would be someone to mediate with God on his behalf.
That’s when we can appreciate that we need never feel that despair. Jesus has made it possible. He continues still to pray for us, so if we ever feel that we can’t come before God, then perhaps we are listening to the wrong voice. The verses in Timothy remind us that God wants all of us to be saved. Prior to these verses in Timothy, Paul was reminding his protégé of the need to pray for those in authority, but it struck me that as well as those in authority we as Christians should also be praying for those who are in such despair that they think they can’t come before God. Job’s friends really didn’t know what to do say really. They said what they thought was right without bothering to seek God. That should teach us a lesson. Sometimes when someone is going through a really hard time, its not what we say to them that will make a difference, its praying to God on their behalf, especially if they feel they can’t do it for themselves.
Dear Lord,
Thank You that we can come before Your throne because of Jesus. Thank You Jesus for continuing to pray for us. Help me to pray for those who are struggling to pray for themselves. Amen.