A Regular Custom

A Verse

Job 1:5

When a period of feasting had run its course, Job would make arrangements for them to be purified. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, “Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” This was Job’s regular custom.

A Comment

As I read this passage this morning, I couldn’t help but think about Job’s concern for his children. As the passage says, it was Job’s custom to rise early in the morning and provide a sacrifice for the sins of his children. Given what we know about the rest of the book of Job, this early sacrificial scene is even more moving. In just a chapter, he would lose all his children (among many other things). Job loved his children, and losing them was almost more than he could bear.

As I meditated on this passage, I was struck by Job’s early morning custom. It stirred me to demonstrate a similar though different concern for my own children. I want to be the type of father who wakes early to pray to God for my wife and children. Herein the similarity with Job. Yet, there is a crucial difference. While I want to rise early and pray for them, I do not have to make an atoning sacrifice for them. This has already been done for them by God the Father in Jesus Christ the Son through the Holy Spirit.

I pray as a child of God for my children. I pray as one who needed a sacrifice for my own sin. And I pray to the Father who has already provided the atonement I need. I don’t have to fret about the efficacy of my own intercession because there is one who ever lives to make intercession on my behalf, Jesus the Christ.

A Prayer

Will you pray with me?

A Blessing

“Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.”