Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
Our verse today is Job talking to God. What a powerful verse. Now, I would love to be able to take just this verse alone and unpack it and have it be so incredible about "no one can stop God." We're high-fiving. It's amazing. We're on God's team. We're on God's side, and no one can stop Him. But I would be remiss, and I don't believe I would be doing you a service or any of us a service if I didn't share the context of this entire passage, because it takes this verse in a whole different, even deeper, more powerful direction.
Job's Fall from Prosperity
This is being said by Job to God, and this is in chapter 42. If we rewind all the way back to Job chapter 1, where Job was a very wealthy man. He had all of these things. He had ten kids. He was prospering. He was known to be a wealthy, prosperous man in that region.
God allowed the devil to take everything from him—his ten kids in just a single day. It was actually within moments of each other. He was hearing the news that all ten of his children were killed. Everything—thing after thing of his earthly possessions—everything was taken. He went from being one of the wealthiest men to being one of the poorest. Literally within moments, he was finding out the news, one after another.
Job's Initial Response
Now, use that context with this verse of Job saying: "I know that You can do anything and no one can stop You."
Imagine applying that when all his kids had just died, when he just lost everything. Yet it's so far down the road that he is saying this. Between that moment right after hearing all that news, it's really important to understand the passage where Job says—in Job chapter 1, verse 20:
"Then Job arose after finding out all the news that he just lost literally everything. Then Job arose and tore his clothes and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. He said, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.' In all of this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing."
Wow! When he lost everything...
The Long Journey Between Loss and Understanding
There's a long distance between that moment and when he said this verse in chapter 42. In between, he had friends sitting with him. They were dialoging a lot. His friends were even pretty much accusing Job, saying he must have done something wrong. On top of losing everything, now there's the guilt of his own friends telling him he must have done something wrong to deserve this. That war and struggle in his head continues. Now he starts questioning why this happened.
Until God Shows Up
Until God shows up. The amazing thing in chapters 40 and 41, God points to what appears to be describing a dinosaur in Job chapters 40 and 41, and said: "You see that enormous animal with a tail like a cedar? I made that. The same creature that men fear and tremble over—I made that. How much more capability do I have for you?"
Job's Realization
In that moment, I want you to capture the power of this. It brings Job to the point of saying our Verse of the Day: "I know that You can do anything, and no one can stop You."
Here's the power of it: What Job knew—and what we all experience—is that one of the most difficult things and challenges as a Christian and about Christianity is: How can you believe in a God that allows the suffering that we see, especially in the midst of the challenge? Knowing that our God can do anything and nothing can stop Him?
God's Victory Over Sin and Death
That's a powerful thing. When sin entered the world, all of a sudden this pain and suffering came upon all of us. But God was not satisfied with that. He had a plan. Because He can do anything and nothing can stop Him.
What He did was have a plan for all of eternity—to have the power over sin, over death, over hell—to give us the ability to know that no matter what pain and suffering we may experience, God has won the victory because nothing can stop Him.
Live Into This Truth
May you be able to take this verse and, no matter what you're going through, live into the power of knowing we serve a God and that nothing can stop Him, because He took the power and claim of sin and death away. We have nothing to fear because we have a God that's gone before us and won the victory.
I pray that you'll be living into that today.
