Wed., 2/5/20 Devotion (Job 4:17)

Today's encouragement comes from Job 4:17, where we read these words from the lips of Eliphaz, one of Job's "comforters":

"Can a mortal be more righteous than God? Can a man be more pure than his Maker?"

Eliphaz, whose diagnosis of the reasons for Job's sufferings was wrong, nevertheless asks two good questions here. One of the peculiar perversions of the Fall, is a practice of the flesh wherein religious people seek, as I like to say it, to "Out-God" God. In other words, if God says to do A, they say, "Let's do A, and require B, C, & D, etc., too."

A mortal cannot be more righteous than God; neither can a man be more pure than his Maker. In Christ, however, the true Christian churchman is made perfectly acceptable to The Perfect God; and is welcomed into His em-braces.

[AUGUSTINE quote of the day: “[God] is more ancient than all things be-cause He is before them all, and newer than all things because He is also after them all.” —from, “The Literal Meaning of Genesis,” Bk. 8.]