As we start today let’s value our wives, our kids, and our world to the point we are ready to stand up and be the dads who don’t give up! Let’s be the dads who will keep fighting the good fight because our wives matter! Let’s be the dads who will keep fighting the good fight because our kids matter! Let’s be the dads who will keep fighting the good fight because our world matters! Let’s be the dads who lean in on God’s Word and His truth so that we don’t allow the lies, the attacks, and the threats to keep us from putting on the full armor of God and standing firm both in defense of our wives, kids, and world but also that we can take back the ground the devil has taken and step into his camp to bring our wives, our kids, and our world out of his snares and traps!
God’s Word tells us:
‘But as for you, O man of God, flee from these things; aim at and pursue righteousness [true goodness, moral conformity to the character of God], godliness [the fear of God], faith, love, steadfastness, and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith [in the conflict with evil]; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and [for which] you made the good confession [of faith] in the presence of many witnesses. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and [in the presence] of Christ Jesus, who made the good confession [in His testimony] before Pontius Pilate, to keep all His precepts without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which He will bring about in His own time—He who is the blessed and only Sovereign [the absolute Ruler], the King of those who reign as kings and Lord of those who rule as lords, He alone possesses immortality [absolute exemption from death] and lives in unapproachable light, whom no man has ever seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal power and dominion! Amen. ‘
1 Timothy 6:11-16
And even as we have seen Job through his story lose people and things, be attacked and challenged by his wife and friends, and yet never gave up on God, let’s trust God who is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us continually from all unrighteousness our wrongdoing, everything not in conformity with His will and purpose!
‘If we say we have no sin [refusing to admit that we are sinners], we delude ourselves and the truth is not in us. [His word does not live in our hearts.] If we [freely] admit that we have sinned and confess our sins, He is faithful and just [true to His own nature and promises], and will forgive our sins and cleanse us continually from all unrighteousness [our wrongdoing, everything not in conformity with His will and purpose]. If we say that we have not sinned [refusing to admit acts of sin], we make Him [out to be] a liar [by contradicting Him] and His word is not in us.’
1 John 1:8-10
And in today’s reading from Job, we get to the part that transformed my opinion of life when I get to the point of reading from Job because in Job 42:12 we receive the message of hope that God not only restored life to Job but gave him a double portion!
‘The Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he prayed for his friends, and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. Then all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before came to him, and they ate bread with him in his house; and they consoled him and comforted him over all the [distressing] adversities that the Lord had brought on him. And each one gave him a piece of money, and each a ring of gold. And the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; for he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys. He had seven sons and three daughters. ‘
Job 42:10-13
Let’s be the dads who trust God at His Word! I know the time back in 2013 when I had this aha moment, I shared it with a friend and when I told him on the last day of the first stage of my career about the message that the second half of my life was going to be twice as good as the first as that was the message from my morning reading, I had to bring him back to Job 1 to show him the math:
‘He also possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke (pairs) of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and a very great number of servants, so that this man was the greatest [and wealthiest and most respected] of all the men of the east (northern Arabia). ‘
Job 1:3
So today, let’s be the dads who don’t give up even when things get hard! Let’s be the dads who instead choose to fight the good fight of the faith in the conflict with evil; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and for which you made the good confession of faith in the presence of many witnesses!
