The Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil” (Job 1:8 NASB).
Job was identifiable. Only God could make this determination, but as He looked at every man, like Noah, God identified Job as the godliest man on the earth. Quite a distinction.
Job would not have considered himself so … because part of such righteousness is the greatest humility. Job thought of himself, without question, as an average man with God, who was simply pursuing and loving God and seeking to be pleasing to Him.
As Spurgeon said, “The greater the saint, the less he thinks of himself.” But God defined Job as “blameless and upright.”
Blameless
The idea of being blameless means to be complete, without sin, free of guilt. It is the idea that there are no areas in one’s life that can be accused.
Upright
To be upright carries the idea of being straight and upstanding. When you stand him against the doorframe of truth, he measures up. “In conformity with justice, law, or morality,” one commentator says.
Quite a man.
Where did this come from, with Job? It sprang, God said, from one motivation and one action. He was a man who was fearing God (the motivation) and turning away from evil (the continual action).
His awe and reverence for God caused him to walk away from anything that was not of God or like God. There was a spiritual circumspection about Job’s life. A carefulness. A sensitivity and resolve regarding all that was ungodly.
Could this be said of us?
Here are some questions to help us toward greater godliness:
- Do I fear God, in the healthiest sense of that phrase?
- Do I have such a full understanding of the Lord that I desire to please Him all the time?
- Do I turn away from everything that is not of God, that might be displeasing to Him?
- Do I quench God’s Spirit, or do I pay such careful attention that there are no words coming from my mouth … no action of my hands … no affection of my heart … no attitude of my spirit … no motive in my life … nothing I place before my eyes and ears … nothing that goes in my mouth or comes out of my mouth … that is displeasing to Him?
If I fear God like that, I’m on the path to greater intimacy and usefulness with God.
Our goal, perhaps, should not be to be the godliest, but to be as godly as we can be, for His glory. But, somewhere in this world today there is a man of whom God says, “There is no one like him on the earth.”