HIGHLIGHT
Job 4:6 (ESV): 6 Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope?
EXPLAIN
Eliphaz the Temanite was the first of Job’s friends to speak and to try to make sense of the tragedy Job had experienced.
In verses 3-4, Eliphaz spoke of Job’s various good deeds. And in verse 6, he suggested that fear of God and integrity in one’s ways gives us confidence and hope.
There is truth in what Eliphaz said. We do find confidence when we know we are living a holy life before God.
Yet there is a danger here also. Our fear of God and integrity comes through our faith in God and our resulting faithfulness, aided by the Spirit, to God. Furthermore, confidence and hope do not preclude trouble from coming our way.
Eliphaz continued down this train of thought to suggest that Job couldn’t be truly pure before holy God. Therefore, he argued, Job had sinned and therefore God was punishing him or allowing this difficulty in his life.
This, of course, was not true. God had commended Job as most upright, but still allowed Satan to test him. The tragedies Job had experienced were not the consequence of any sin he had committed.
APPLY
1 John 3 emphasizes this truth.
1 John 3:14 (ESV): 14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.
1 John 3:21–22 (ESV): 21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22 and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.
Our confidence is not found in our goodness, but rather in that by grace through faith God has redeemed and renewed us; therefore, our changed life is evidence of God’s grace.
If our faith is in God and we are striving by his help to live holy, we can have confidence and hope even though we may suffer difficulty and setback in life.
RESPOND
Heavenly Father, my hope is in you. Thank you for your grace. Continue to change me to be more like you. Amen.