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Refined by Fire: The Power of Having a Good Reputation
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I'm sure that you, like me, want to walk with God's hedge around your life, your work, your family, and those who you care for. God absolutely wants us to walk with this special blessing over our lives but it is preserved for those who live as Job lived. Job lived one of the most amazing lives I've seen of anyone in the bible. He is a supreme picture of enduring the fiery trials of life and remaining faithful till the end. Here, we are drawing out some of the secrets of Job's relationship with God that moved God to bless him above everyone on earth and put a hedge around his blessed life.
The focus in this message is the scripture, "Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not made a hedge around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land." Job 1: 9-10
Job 1:1 Saying that Job was blameless deals directly with his character but it also deals with his reputation. Reputation meaning what other people thought about Job. Job was a person that you really couldn't find evidence against to accuse him or bring fault against him. Even when all of his best friends sat around and discussed the calamity that came into Job's life, they never pointed to actual sin that he had.
It's a good place to be in when you know you're innocent. I've been punished many times, and I've had fingers pointing at me at times when I was in the wrong. That's not fun at all. When bad things happen to us in life, people are going to talk and accuse us of doing all sorts of things wrong.
Everybody's got an "I told ya so" when you're down; but you want to make sure before God and heaven that you're innocent of any blatant sin that could have directly caused your hard time. Some people keep a bad reputation with people but we've got to realize that we need each other and God calls us to do two things in our life as a Christian to prove our love for Him, and to live a great life.
"And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.' This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, it is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" Mark 12: 30-31
To win favor with people and keep a good reputation, we've got to love other people and seek the very best for people. You know they say "if you want friends, be friendly," that's true! My wife has always been one of the nicest people that I've ever met. She was class president all four years and Miss Congeniality in high school without ever compromising her devotion to God. Even the people who were on various cliques in school loved Crystal, because she loved them all.
Today, we don't judge people by outward appearances or their idiosyncrasies, we always think of something nice to say about people and appreciate their uniqueness. We make an effort to serve and talk with people who are up against the wall or finding it hard to mix in with the group because they are people!
"Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep." Romans 12:15
I know that when I'm down and out, I want somebody to love me so I invest and plant seeds of goodness into people's lives so that when it comes my time for help, people will judge me in love as I've judged them, and people will share with me as I've shared with them.
It's not that I think I expect to fall that low in my life, it's just that God gave us love and tells us to freely give love as it's been given to us. If we learn how to truly love people, learn to communicate that love effectively with people, try not to violate people, and seek forgiveness fast when we do, then we will be setting ourselves up to truly gain favor with men. At that point, people may talk bad about you but you know, the angels know, and God knows that you've been a good neighbor and have a blameless report. That's when you can look to God for His deliverance from the persecutions of people.
At the end of Job's 3 year fiery trial, he received a double portion of his previous blessing and God dealt with every one of those ridiculing friends that Job had. If you live a blameless life and don't seek your own vengeance with people, when God gets ready to speak, you'll have to beg God not to wipe out all of your accusers! "Vengeance is Mine, says the Lord!"
The bible says that Jesus grew in favor with God and with men. Some of us pretend like it makes no difference what people think about us. That's definitely true when you're innocent of offences like Job was in his case or David was with Saul, but if you know that you don't love people, care for people, show people respect, and walk with integrity before people, then you're missing a tremendous blessing in life and not representing God at all. This prevents God from truly blessing you the way He wants to.
Source: Free Articles
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