Job Sitting in Ashes with His Three Friendsby Peter
27:6Job 27:6
My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.
The verse stands within the long debate with his three friends over his afflictions that stretches from chapter 4 through chapter 31. It declares a firm hold on righteousness and integrity, with a heart and conscience that does not accuse or condemn for as long as life lasts. By that declaration Job challenged his friends and maintained that they could not convict him of sin. He knew he was upright, he could not understand God's dealings with him, and he did not charge God with wrongdoing.
Behind the declaration lay a resolve to obey God's requirements, including a covenant with his eyes not to do evil, yet he still needed to know God for himself. The confidence expressed here was excessive and self-righteous. Upright conduct alone is not enough and such self-reliant confidence can bring ruin, so those who enter Christ's kingdom must let go of reliance on self. The excessive confidence led to Job being humbled by God and repenting.
Holding fast to righteousness and not denying integrity while repeatedly drinking the bitterest cup, passing through unmerciful disaster, and sitting comfortless in ashes cursing the day of birth is the price of perfection. That course leads at last to refinement as from fire with purified vision, to learn that pain is good and that the hardest experiences of hardship and loss are richest in knowledge and power and joy. Keeping a firm hold on integrity as an honest person matters much, while where one is born, whether parents were rich or poor, whether one meets the scorn of the world or lives secure in pride of wealth, how long one remains in a world of sorrow and sin and care, and whether the grave is on land or sea matter little or nothing.
The verse stands within the long debate with his three friends over his afflictions that stretches from chapter 4 through chapter 31. It declares a firm hold on righteousness and integrity, with a heart and conscience that does not accuse or condemn for as long as life lasts. By that declaration Job challenged his friends and maintained that they could not convict him of sin. He knew he was upright, he could not understand God's dealings with him, and he did not charge God with wrongdoing.
Behind the declaration lay a resolve to obey God's requirements, including a covenant with his eyes not to do evil, yet he still needed to know God for himself. The confidence expressed here was excessive and self-righteous. Upright conduct alone is not enough and such self-reliant confidence can bring ruin, so those who enter Christ's kingdom must let go of reliance on self. The excessive confidence led to Job being humbled by God and repenting.
Holding fast to righteousness and not denying integrity while repeatedly drinking the bitterest cup, passing through unmerciful disaster, and sitting comfortless in ashes cursing the day of birth is the price of perfection. That course leads at last to refinement as from fire with purified vision, to learn that pain is good and that the hardest experiences of hardship and loss are richest in knowledge and power and joy. Keeping a firm hold on integrity as an honest person matters much, while where one is born, whether parents were rich or poor, whether one meets the scorn of the world or lives secure in pride of wealth, how long one remains in a world of sorrow and sin and care, and whether the grave is on land or sea matter little or nothing.