Testing, Testing One, Two, Three…
1 Peter 4:12-19 Amplified Bible (AMP)
12Beloved, do not be amazed and bewildered at the fiery ordeal which is taking place to test your quality, as though something strange (unusual and alien to you and your position) were befalling you. 13But insofar as you are sharing Christ's sufferings, rejoice, so that when His glory [full of radiance and splendor] is revealed, you may also rejoice with triumph [exultantly]. 14If you are censured and suffer abuse [because you bear] the name of Christ, blessed [are you--happy, fortunate,[a]to be envied, [b]with life-joy, and satisfaction in God's favor and salvation, regardless of your outward condition], because the Spirit of glory, the Spirit of God, is resting upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified.
Have you ever been in a season, where it seemed as if you were in a pressure cooker, and relief was nowhere in sight? Have you woken up in the morning only to pray, God please don’t let anything else go wrong today, because I don’t know if I can handle one more thing? I can safely say, I have been there and lived through levels of this more than once in my life. I have cried going to sleep and waking up, I have cried in my sleep. I have put out a fire only to turn around and find that there is another blaze turning into an inferno as I was turning. Right before our eyes, often one little test can turn into, a major trial or tribulation. It can seem insignificant and turn real significant really fast. Or you can find yourself in a place where just when you thought you were healing or getting your strength back, something else comes along and knocks the wind out of you or knocks you off of your feet and keeps rolling right over you.
My husband helped me with this one, and so did our Bishop, it’s not what you are doing wrong; it is what you are doing right. It is not because you are being punished, it is because you are being trusted to handle it and to endure in a fashion that will be pleasing to God and that will cause us to grow in stature and in grace that will qualify us for our next season in God or the next level in us being pulled out of us. Our seasons of rapid trials, usually means rapid growth. It usually means that God is prepping you to move, and it also means that you are a threat. Satan will never bother someone that is not a threat to him. Those of us who aren’t under fire or being stretched might want to check, whose camp you really belong to. Tests come to prove us, polish us and prepare us. It also comes to identify us and to isolate us and to improve us. In the midst of a test, what is within us, will manifest itself, what is down in us will come up and out of us. In the midst of a test or trial we will show God what we are made of; will we continue to believe and keep pressing in spite of or will we be as Jobs wife advised and want to curse God an die?
Life is not easy, but life in Christ, especially when we are seeking to do His will and walk after the Spirit of God and not after the flesh, there are battles that lead to wars. It will put us in a place where we have inadvertently declared war on our enemy and on our flesh, and sometimes on people too. Tests put us in a place where we will have to prove our love, that we will have to be purified and identified; are we for God and do we love Him enough to trust Him or not. Many of us are struggling through season of test after test. See them for what they are, they are modes of transportation that are taking us somewhere in God. They are purging out every impurity so that God can see His reflection and know that we can be trust, to handle what comes next, because there is more of Him in us than anything else. Tests bring us into the presence of the Lord and can bring us into the blessings that come with being loyal and promoted in God. Don’t lose heart, for the tests that come are NOT to kill us or to destroy us, but to make us and to grow us. For God to be Glorified and get the Glory out of us, test will come, so it can produce a testimony to His faithfulness! As my husband has said to me, in the midst of your test don’t lose faith when you need it the most, remain understanding that this is to bring you into a place of elevation, responsibility and blessing!
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