Without test it is impossible to nurture and measure your faith. Just like without exam we cannot measure the ability, knowledge, capacity and level of student it is important to test our faith. Test is hard at first, sometime we have to go through tough and rough situation in our life, we need to face obstacles and difficulties but when we do not loose our faith upon God and make our faith stable upon Him, the result is our faith transforms into matured faith. The good thing about test is it's a preparation for higher level. We must go through test of our faith. It is mandatory in each Christian individual.
God test our faith before He entrusts us with any responsibility, God doesn't trust a person whose faith has not been tested.
Abraham had to go through test and trial of his faith before getting blessings from God.
Moses had go through God's test. He spent 40 years in the desert before leading the people of God out of the enslavement of Egypt (Acts 7:23-30; 1 Cor. 10:5).
King David had to go through test before his kingships.
Jesus Christ himself had go through God the Father's test before bearing the responsibility to redeem whole world.
"We cannot run from test but we have to run through test of our faith"
"Satan tempts to bring out the bad, but God tests to bring out the good"
"A faith that cannot be tested is a faith that cannot be trusted"
The story is told about a man on the operating table who was very uncomfortable about his imminent surgery. Although anesthesia was to be applied, the doctor said, “It seems you are very uncomfortable about this surgery.” “Yes,” the man replied,” it is my first surgery.” “I understand,” the doctor said, “this is my first surgeon too.”
We want to go to a surgeon who has passed the test and partake of medicines that have been approved.
Three kinds of Test :
Test of Obstacles and problems :
Example : Story of boy and butterfly struggling to come out of it's cocoon
A young boy came across a butterfly cocoon and brought it into his house. He watched, over the course of hours, as the butterfly struggled to break free from its confinement. It managed to create a small hole in the cocoon, but its body was too large to emerge. It tired and became still. Wanting to help the butterfly, the boy snipped a slit in the cocoon with a pair of scissors. But the butterfly was small, weak, and its wings crumpled. The boy expected the insect to take flight, but instead it could only drag its undeveloped body along the ground. It was incapable of flying. When he asked his father why the butterfly is still not flying after he helped it father replied, "with it's struggle to come out of it's cocoon it develops it's wings and gains strength. In your eagerness to help the butterfly, stunted its development. The butterfly needed to go through the process of struggling against the cocoon to gain strength and fill its wings with blood. It was the struggle that made it stronger"
When problems and difficulties hits your life, how will you react? How faithful you will be on God then? Most of the time true face of our faith is revealed when problems hits us. Simply many of us loose our faith in such situation.
How strong is your faith is not revealed by how much you read Bible or how long you pray but is revealed but how much you are steadfast in God in the midst of problems.
Example : House built on sand and house built on rock : two foundation of Faith
Test of our possessions : Sometimes we say we are willing to give up everything for the Lord, but are we willing to give it up to the Lord? There’s a big difference between giving up something for the Lord and giving it to the Lord. Many times we love blessing more than giver of blessing. It is not enough to give God a place in our life but He should be our center and first priority of our life.
He has blessed us with liberty, prosperity and technology. Yet, we seem to be more in love with the gifts of this world than we are of the One who created the world in the first place.
Satan can easily tempt us by it's ugly trap with the lure of material things. He tempted Jesus with same plan (Matthew 4:8).
In Malachi 2:2 God warns us , “If you don’t listen, I will turn your blessings into curses” The test is somewhere along life’s journey when God will ask us to give some blessings back to Him. Can we trust Him with our possessions?
Test of purpose : Can You Trust God with His Purposes for You? Bible says "For he chose us in him before the creation of the world" (Ephesians 1:4). Understanding and doing the will of God requires three simple steps—finding, following and finishing the will of God. Most of time we like to walk in our won direction with our won plan to fulfill our own purpose but we do not care what God wants from our life. Believing in God's purpose for our life is to put our faith in God and hand over our life upon Him.
Nearly fifty five years ago, Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke stood literally on a street corner of time in Africa, on a Monday morning, with tears filling his eyes. He said, “God, I know You have called me to Africa. You have shown me a vision of Africa painted red with the Gospel, but at the rate of five people here, and a hundred people someplace else, it will take me 6,000 years to tell everybody in Africa about Jesus. Besides, I don’t have enough money to pay the office rent on Friday. I need fifty dollars, and I only have five.”
God whispered, “Do you want me to give you a million dollars?” But, with his face turned heavenward, Reinhard said, “God, I do not ask You for a million dollars. I am asking you for a million souls. I don’t want to be a millionaire, but a soul millionaire. I want to plunder hell and populate heaven. That will be the purpose of my life.” Not only did God provide the fifty dollars for the office rent, but in the last six years, more than 43 million people have given their hearts to Jesus Christ in a Bonnke crusade.
Can we trust God with the possessions He has given, and can we trust Him with the purpose He has for us?
KR MINISTRY
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