As humans we seem to have a pretty clear mindset when it comes to our behaviour and God.

It goes something like this; “If we behave and do the right things then good things will happen to us”. This is backed up by the shadow thought. “If we don’t behave and do the wrong things then bad things will happen to us”.

We didn’t just invent this idea from nowhere. It’s how most of us were parented, and how most of us who are parents continue to parent. I’m not saying that we do bad things to our kids, but if our kids don’t behave well there are consequences to that behaviour and if they behave well we like to reward that behaviour. I’m not saying that there is something ‘terrible’ about this but the reality is it has created this behavioural mindset that we have often continued as adults. The difference is as an adult we don’t have a parent who rewards or hands out consequences……. so we pass this mindset on to bosses, pastors, coaches etc. and most importantly on to God.

If life is good for us we somehow believe that we mist be doing something correct and God is pleased with us, and conversely if life is going badly then something must be amiss in our lives. We do the same when we look at the lives of others and what they are going through.

Of course we have seen challenges and anomalies in this mindset. We all have stories of seemingly good people who suffered difficult circumstances and we equally know people who we would describe as having behaved badly who seem to have sailed through life.

However, we still mostly return to the idea that;

being good = experiencing good

being bad = experiencing bad.

So, where are we going here? Well, I want us to look at the Bible to see if we are living out something that is true. From one perspective it seems like this is true because as we read through the Scriptures below we see this principle lived out;

A wicked person earns deceptive wages, but the one who sows righteousness reaps a sure reward. Proverbs 11:18

Tell the righteous it will be well with them, for they will enjoy the fruit of their deeds. Isaiah 3:10

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Galatians 6:7-9

You are probably thinking at this point; “This is such a stupid point! Did I just waste three minutes reading something I already knew and was living by already?” I hear you and if this was all the scriptures had to say about this topic then there would be no need to write anything more……. but that’s not the case. In fact the Bible shows us in many other places that good or bad behaviour doesn’t always seem to deliver the consequences we think they should. Check these passages out;

…..He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Matthew 5:45b

For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong.They are free from common human burdens; they are not plagued by human ills. Psalm 73:3-5

So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God’s hands, but no one knows whether love or hate awaits them. All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not. As it is with the good,so with the sinful; as it is with those who take oaths, so with those who are afraid to take them. This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all Ecclesiastes 9:1-3a

We are of course looking at all of these verses out of context but they give us an indication that it isn’t as clear cut as we might think.

So which one is it? Does my behaviour matter? Or should I just do whatever I feel like because the outcome isn’t dependant on me?

The book of Job in the Scripture is a book dedicated to this debate. Job is a book which many of us can struggle to read through, but over the years it has grown to be up there with some of the most interesting books in the Bible for me. Up to this point in the Scripture people held the same mindset that we do and they applied it to a Godly viewpoint like the earlier verses we looked at do – God’s blessing would be on you if you kept His laws and His curse would be on you if you didn’t. Then the book of Job happens. Here is how the book opens;

In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. He had seven sons and three daughters, and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East. Job 1:3 (NIV)

He’s a pretty impressive character and we are given even more about how great Job was, and how he surrounded his kids in prayer. Even God himself calls Job upright and blameless and declares that there is no one on earth like him. That’s a pretty strong recommendation!

What we find out within one chapter of the book is that Job’s impeccable character and behaviour doesn’t save him for experiencing peril. In fact we hear that he experiences some of the most unimaginable pain; he loses his livelihood, he loses his kids in a horrible incident, he loses his health, and ultimately loses his dignity and standing within his community. We’re not told how long his suffering took to reach it’s fulfilment but it all seems to turn around very quickly. What we are told is that even in the midst of these circumstances Job doesn’t sin in how he reacted to it all.

The rest of the book takes the form of a debate between Job’s friends; who hold the good behaviour = good experience mindset and Job’s response to them. There is a lot of back and forward! While Job mostly does a good job at holding his ground with his friends, there are some occasions where he expressed his disappointment to God.

After a while of listening to this debate (some would say too long) God weighs in on the conversation in the most incredible way. He reminds Job of His sovereignty and the scale of the world in which Job lives in. He gives Job an insight into some of the things that He is holding together and the mysteries of creation that none of us can fathom. It’s a pretty overwhelming read. After God responds to him Job has nothing left to say and this is final comment in the book.

……“I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Job 42:1-5

The book then ends with God telling off his friends, then with Job praying for their forgiveness, and at the very end we hear that Job received blessing from the Lord to such an extent that the end of his life was more fruitful than the earlier days. God more than doubles his possessions and family and Job lived to see his family to the fourth generation.

Let’s form some sort of a conclusion here shall we?

The book of Job exists to teach us the topic of Spiritual Warfare. There are many other lessons we can learn but ultimately it is a reminder that if we are following Jesus that we have an enemy. The enemy does not have control over us but he is not powerless either. He is waging war against the advancing kingdom of God because he knows nothing else. His greatest desire is to turn our affection away from God and unto ourselves and the other stuff we encounter in this world. He’ll use whatever he can get his hands on to do this; pain and power, sickness and health, absolute emptiness and abundance, poverty and popularity. Spiritual warfare exists outside of our rules. In the same way a physical war doesn’t discriminate against behaviour, when a bomb drops we all suffer, the same (and so much more) can be applied to a spiritual war. Whilst I do believe there are certain conditions that may open the door to spiritual warfare we would be foolish to try and create a formula.

I titled this post “The Behaviour Roulette” because I believe that too often as the church our goal is have a nice life by living the right way. I’ve met too many followers of Jesus who think if they do enough of the right things, or at least do more of them than the wrong things, then life is going to go OK for them. Their sole focus becomes behaviour modification. This usually works OK for them until they find a bullet and life takes a turn. They begin to shake their fists at God, and some completely turn away from Him. Whilst the things that people face are horrendous and I’m gutted that they have to face them their reaction shows that in all the years of ‘following Jesus’ they weren’t actually building a relationship with Him but rather were just ticking off a list of good behaviours.

So, if all this spiritual warfare stuff is true, and our behaviour doesn’t seem to gain us anything, should we just do what we want? Of course not. I want our lives to reflect the pattern God has set for us. It’s a following of His example not so we would gain reward, kudos, or special treatment, but a response to who He is and all that He has done for us. Following Jesus is not about behaviour modification but a full life transplant where we remove ourselves from the throne of our lives and place the rightful King there. Our lives are then spent serving that rightful King. When our focus is on Him we should expect that how we conduct ourselves will change, in fact if it doesn’t we would question where our focus truly is, but it is a very different proposition than the roulette we have been describing.

This post has already gone on long enough and I hope that my rambling has made some sense. If your life today doesn’t look the way you think you deserve then I truly am sorry. All I know is that God is good, He continues to be good, and we are in a battle. I pray that the God of all peace would bring His peace to you today