The Intent of Your Heart

Job's comforters -- it is such a cliche that everyone knows what it means, even people who do not spend time reading the Bible. These guys get together to go spend time with a friend who has suffered loss of family, fortune, and health, and they end up arguing with him, accusing him of deserving these terrible things because of sin in his life.

As I read through the conversations between Job and his "buddies," I find it interesting that each of Job's friends starts off with true statements about God, but they all draw inaccurate conclusions about Job and are ultimately reprimanded by God. Job utters rash statements, made through his anguish and pain, which God contests and goes on to establish His majesty and authority, but honors Job by requiring the men who came to comfort him to ask him to pray for them to be healed from the results of God's anger toward them.

So much of what the Scriptures reveal about the individuals described and documented within the verses help us to realize that God accepts or rejects people based on the intent of the heart, and the level of desire for God's will to be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Proverbs 22:4 Humility and the fear of the Lord bring wealth and honor and life.

Lord, it is not with our thoughts and understanding that we set our feet on Your path and our hands to Your work. It is with our hearts and acceptance of all You have for us. Father, it is not with perfection that we walk in Your ways and stand before Your throne, it is with failures and shortcomings and error that cloud our vision of You and our attempts to obey the Spirit, so that the glory and righteousness and honor will all be Yours.

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