I Need God to Show Up!

Job 31

Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Friday, February 17.

Job finished his speech in Job 31, concluding the dialogue between him and his three friends, which started in chapter 3. All his talking throughout these many chapters came down to this one request made in Job 31:35, “Oh that I had one to hear me! Behold, here is my signature; let the Almighty answer me!” He wholeheartedly believed that he was innocent, and throughout his suffering he had not wavered from that conviction, but he knew that he couldn’t justify himself. He needed God to show up in his situation because he couldn’t rescue himself! None of us can!

Have you ever come to the place where you know that you need God to show up? We call this hitting bottom or coming to the end of yourself! I’ve personally experienced it as hitting the wall of pride and performance. I couldn’t go any further. I was done. I was ruined!

Hallelujah! What a scary and beautiful place to be, when you come to the end of your rope only to find that you weren’t sufficient to the task of rescuing you from yourself or your circumstances. This is when we cry out to God from a place of absolute surrender, hearing the same words Jesus gave Paul in his great struggle, found in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10:

“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.

Job had lamented his circumstances and cried out to God! He attached his signature to his plea for redemption. It was now up to God to show up!

Seize the moment and “draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8).