Job 14:1-12 – Life is short, use it to serve God

The words of Job remind us of the result of man’s disobedience. God told Adam that the day he ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, he would surely die. Adam ate of it and since then, death had been the experience of man. Not only would life be short and brief but also sorrowful and tumultuous. Moses in Psalm 90:10 said that “labor and sorrow” fill the brief lifespan of man. Both Job and his thoughts concur. Verse 3 leaves us with no doubt that God watches us all the time and we are all accountable to Him. The truth is also this: that no one can make himself clean. This implied that sin holds sway in mankind. In truth, we all have the tendency to sin. Thankfully, God has given Jesus, our Lord, through whom He also releases His grace. So that as Isaiah 1:18 says, “Though our sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool.”

Our life, Job tells us, is in the hand of God. Verses 5-6 tell us that the length of our earthly existence is determined by Him. Job saw the duration of life as the time to work. And death is likened to rest after one has gone home from work. Here we are also shown the inevitability of death. Unlike a tree that can sprout again even when it is cut down, man’s death is terminal. Therefore, we must remember the word of our Lord in John 9:4, “We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work.”  While we are healthy and in our prime, we must do the work of Jesus, which God had sent Him to do. We, His followers, are now His redemptive agents in the world today. Let us be His true ambassadors, and on Christ's behalf calling out to others to be reconciled to God.