Job 1 Devotional

Worth Worshiping for Himself

“saying: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.””Job 1:21 (BSB)

Job 1 opens with a man the LORD himself calls blameless and upright (1:8). Then the scene moves to heaven, where Satan answers the LORD with a question: does Job fear God only because of what he gets (1:9)? Take away the hedge of blessing, he says, and Job will curse God to his face. The LORD allows Satan to strike everything Job has, but he sets the limit himself: not the man (1:12).

In one day Job loses his herds, his servants, and all ten children. He tears his robe, falls to the ground, and worships. He confesses that all he had came from the LORD and was his to take, and he blesses the LORD's name (1:21). He mourns openly, but he does not charge God with wrong (1:22). The accusation was that God is loved only for his gifts. Job's worship answers that God is worth loving for who he is. The worth of God does not rise and fall with what we hold in our hands.

To think about: What would it look like for your worship this week to rest on who God is rather than on what he has given you?