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Job 31:29-30
29 If I rejoiced [samach] at the destruction [piyd]
of him that hated [sane'] me, or lifted up [`uwr] myself when evil [ra`]
found [matsa'] him:
30 Neither have I suffered [nathan] my mouth [chek] to sin [chata'] by wishing [sha'al] a curse
['alah] to his soul [nephesh]. KJV-Interlinear
29 'Have I rejoiced at the
extinction of my enemy, Or exulted when evil befell him? 30 'No, I have not allowed my mouth to sin By
asking for his life in a curse. NASB
Job has referred to his attitude toward the poor or
helpless folks of the world. He has
referred to his attitude toward possessions or his various positions in
society. And now, he is introducing
another category of attitudes, these being referred to those folks who oppose
him, those folks who hate him, those folks who seek harm to fall on him.
If you have lived for any length of time on this earth
and have had interactions with people in anyway, then no doubt, you have been
the target of gossip, maligning, judging, rage, insults, and so forth.
There is no shortage of people who are implacable and
seek revenge or harm against anyone they simply do no like.
The character of wickedness is vanity. Vanity means nothing, or nothingness. Nothing means empty, and empty means
shallow. So the principle nature of
people who lack a spiritual life, is their shallowness.
People will do bad things out of spite, in seeking
political advantage (office, social, etc.), from jealousy or envy, and so
forth.
If you have any degree of prosperity or success, or if
others simply perceive that you are well off, then they will hate you just
because you have what they want. They
may veil their attitude with criticism or some convenient standard which they
subscribe to, in order to help their gossip arguments to seem legitimate, but
deep down in there soul is jealousy or hate and nothing more.
Your destruction accomplishes nothing but satisfaction
of their ego in seeing you fall.
You may know who your enemies are, and many times in
life, you will never know them. Often
times you will hear about attacks against you, second hand, if at all.
So now you can lower yourself to the standards of your
enemies, or you can follow the standard which Job states here.
Matt. 5:44-48
44 'But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for
those who persecute you 45 in order that you may be sons of your Father who is
in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends
rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 'For if you love those who love
you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax-gatherers do the same? 47 'And
if you greet your brothers only, what do you do more than others? Do not even
the Gentiles do the same? 48 'Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly
Father is perfect. NASB
To adopt revenge or hate, compromises and defeats your
spiritual life. Your spiritual life is
more valuable than all the wealth in the world combined. So why would you throw that away over a
little anger toward someone who is clearly a fool.
You gain nothing, just as they gain nothing. And you risk losing vast spiritual wealth for
nothing.
Being successful, Job was certainly the target of many
jealous types. Being in business, he most
likely made others feel cheated or injured, even if they were not.
Life in this world is not perfect, and often times
errors or flaws occur, or things just do not work out as you planned. Others may feel that you are the cause of
their failure or loss.
And whether you are to blame or not, is irrelevant
anyway. Everyone should look to God for
their provision unique to them and their life, and get over whatever
difficulties crop up in life.
But of course we know that most folks will get upset
for one reason or another, so confrontation, jealousy, envy, and such are all
going to be a part of life, regardless of your efforts or failures.
Job was not a perfect man, but suffice to say, he was
probably more perfect than any of us.
Sure, you will get your feathers ruffled from time to
time. You will blow your stack from time
to time. But the spiritually advancing
believer will recover his poise, recover his composure and move on with
life. You should never go out of your
way to plan or coordinate a counter-attack (socially), against anyone who just
doesn't like you.
Your best course is to simply ignore them, avoid them
and move on with a life that is far more important to you, than getting bogged
down in someone else's emotional failures.
If you have to blow off steam, then buy a punching bag
and hang it up in the garage. The
exercise would be good for you anyway.
Then go have a sandwich!
Now is the time to post a prayer.
End Of Lesson
Study to show thyself approved (mature) unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing (studying/discerning), the Word of truth.
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