For me the book of Job is the most difficult to understand in the whole Bible. I’ve read this book many times. I’ve often wondered why God put it in the Bible. You rarely hear sermons preached from this book. Atheists will use the book of Job as a reason for rejecting God all together. But, obviously God has some profound truths for us to learn from this book, so it’s worth taking the time to study it.

Below are some things I’ve learned from chapter one…

1) God thinks the best of His people.

God is not looking down on His people expecting the worst. He has good thoughts towards us. He is not just sitting there waiting for us to sin because He just knows that we’re going to screw up at any moment. Rather, He sees us through eyes of grace and He lovingly takes joy in watching us living in faith for Him.

Contrast that with us. When we look at God we tend to think the worst about Him. Something goes wrong and we blame God. Things don’t go as we planned and we wonder where God is. We read the book of Job and we think God is unloving towards Job.

When Satan says to God, “Job doesn’t really love you God. He just loves all the stuff you’ve given him.”
God’s response is, “Nonsense!”

When Satan says to Adam and Eve, “God doesn’t really love you. See He’s holding out on you.”
Adam and Eve’s response is, “Hmm. We think God is holding out on us.”

God sees not as man sees. God looks at the heart. Man looks at outward appearance.
(1 Sam. 16:7)

We can’t see God and so we doubt He cares when we have problems. When everything is going well, we think that maybe He loves us, but deep down we’re wondering when things will go bad again.

We need to see like God sees and look into His heart.

How do we see into God’s heart?

Read the Bible, be filled with the Holy Spirit, and look at the person and work of Jesus Christ.

If you’re suffering and you begin to doubt God loves you, then think about Jesus on the cross. He suffered on that cross much greater than you ever will, and He did it because He loves you. So whatever the reason may be that you’re suffering, you can be sure that the reason for your suffering is not because God doesn’t love you.

See into God’s heart and you’ll learn to always think the best of Him.

Here are some more things I’ve learned. Maybe I’ll elaborate more on these later…

2) Satan, in a twisted and sinful way, still longs for God’s approval.

5) Job expressed his despair by tearing his clothes and shaving his head. He didn’t hide his true feelings. And in doing that he did not sin against God.