"Does Job fear God for nothing?” (Job 1:9)

Satan was allowed to test Job to see if he served God for the blessings or because his heart was to serve Him unconditionally. This is the ultimate salvation question for every saint of God. The expectation of God is clear: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). This is the Biblical definition of unconditional love. Much is said about God’s unconditional love for us....little is said about how we're supposed to have   faith working through unconditional love for God (Galatians 5:6). 

 Most church-goers love God because He prospers them; but if things go bad, they lose their boasted faith in God. Their love is conditional. They wouldn’t pass Job’s unconditional love test. “Then his wife said to him, ‘Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!’ But he said to her, ‘You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?’ In all this Job did not sin with his lips” (Job 2:9-10). 

 Remember Christ's words: “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit” (John 15:2). In order for you to bear more fruit, you’ll have to endure affliction. "Oh!" you say, "it’s not worth it!" But God knows otherwise. His affliction brings forth precious fruit, “for as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ” (2 Corinthians 1:5). 

 If your “friends” are like Job’s “friends”, “blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:11-12)