True Christianity is all about living out and proving in our practical life, not just hearing the Word or hearing messages.
James 1:22, ‘But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves’.
Are we only interested in hearing the messages and are not serious about living our practical life and are not interested to live like Jesus lived? Then we are fooling ourselves, we are under deception.
John 13:17, ‘Now that you know these things , you will be blessed if you do them’
We are blessed if we do them. We need to prove by our life. This is our true Christianity!
We will all will score good marks if a theory test on Bible is kept. But if God puts a practical test in our lives, how much mark we will score? This clearly shows our true spirituality! At this time, our true character, our beliefs, our faith and our true spirituality is seen. When we encounter various trials, testing in our lives, does this Word, show in our lives, that we are living it? It is necessary for God to test us, His people. Bible says that the Lord tests the righteous! It is God’s will and He has a purpose for testing us.
Jeremiah 20:12, ‘Yet, O Lord of hosts, You who test the righteous, Who see the mind and the heart;’
The Lord is He, who test the righteous, who sees their mind and their heart.
Psalms 11:4, ‘The Lord is in His holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men. 5 The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, And the one who loves violence His soul hates’.
The Lord tests the righteous. The Lord is on the throne. What is God expecting from us, when He is testing us, when we are going through different testing and trials in our lives?
Revelation 22:11, ‘Let the one who does wrong, still do wrong; and the one who is filthy, still be filthy; and let the one who is righteous, still practice righteousness; and the one who is holy, still keep himself holy.”
The one who is righteous, he still needs to practice righteousness, the one who is holy, he should still keep himself holy. We see the progress in the spiritual growth – ‘the growth in the righteousness and the growth in the holiness’. God’s will and His purpose in us, is our sanctification. God is our healer, our savior, our sanctifier. We have to go through our sanctification process.
1 Thessalonians 4:3, ‘For this is the will of God, your sanctification;’
V7, ‘For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification.’
We have many impurities in our lives. Through this sanctification process, God has a purpose and will for us, is our sanctification. God wants to remove all impurities from our lives, that still exists in us, the corruption in our heart, through the sanctification process. We need to set up our heart only to our Lord, to use us.
2 Timothy 2:21, ‘Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work.’
God’s purpose for us is to be a useful and a sanctified vessel. To be an honorable vessel for Him to use. This is what God is doing in us, the sanctification process, when we go through testing and trials. Day by day we need to be transformed to His image, so we need to be cleansed from all these sins, impurities and all unrighteousness. We need to grow in holiness, grow in righteousness and be conformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ. This is God’s purpose in our lives.
James 1:2, ‘Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.’
This is God’s purpose in our lives, when we go through different trials, for us to be a perfect result, so that we may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. The perfect result is for us to be conformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ. God wants us to make us into a useful, honorable vessel, useful for His glory. As the medical report shows our true health condition, through the testing and trials, God will reveal our true spiritual condition in our lives. When God reveals our true condition, we need to come to God with a repentant heart, we need to cleanse ourselves, so that God can use us effectively for His glory. To be an honorable vessel for His glory.
Like a shapeless, ugly raw steel material, full of impurities is changed into a high-quality vessel, through an engineer or a manufacturer, who had a vision for this ugly raw material, our heavenly Father has a vision for our lives. God wants to produce in us a high-quality product, a vessel useful for His glory. For us to be conformed into the likeness of His son. This is God’s vision for our lives. When the raw steel is put in the furnace, all the impurities are removed; by these trials and testing God wants to purify us, remove all the impurities from our lives. After which a beautiful vessel is produced, which is free from all the impurities. We are also like this raw material, shapeless, full of sin, impurities in our lives. God wants to use us for His glory through this sanctification process.
Hebrews 10:10, ‘By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.’
We are already sanctified by the blood of Jesus. Still, we have many impurities and un-Christlike nature in us. When we go through these testing and trials, God will reveal one by one in our lives, so that we can grow more and more in holiness and righteousness and be conformed into His image.
Abraham was tested by God.
Genesis 22:1, ‘Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.”
V11, ‘But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 12 He said, “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now, I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”
V17, ‘indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies.’
When Abraham was tested, the angel said, ‘Now, I know that you fear God’; ‘Now I know that God is first in your life’. This is the testimony from God. We see that in the beginning, Abraham and God were in close relationship, Abraham had faith in God. Later, we see that once he received the blessing, when Isaac was born, the promise was fulfilled through the birth of Isaac, his priority changed. His love for the Lord became cold. His priority is shifted towards the blessing, Isaac. He had to go through testing. God tested Abraham. He passed the test.
When God has blessed us with many things, spiritually and materially, our devotion and our priority should still, be the Lord. It should not turn towards the blessings. Let us examine ourselves. Is God first in our lives? Or is it the blessing, that we received from the Lord?
Abraham proved his devotion to the Lord, through the sacrifice, by being ready to offer his son. He proved it to the Lord, that his first priority was God. The angel said, ‘for now, I know that you fear God’.
We should not drift away from the Lord. This is not God’s will for us. We need to keep God first in our lives. Let us also say that ‘we desire nothing but you, Lord’. It should not be God plus some blessing, but God should be first in our lives. Our desire must be only Him. God will allow some situations in our lives, to show us what we really are in our spiritual life!
Job went through testing. He went through many sufferings. Through all these, he did not sin; he worshipped the Lord. We see the testimony from God.
Job 1:22, ‘Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God.’
Job 13:15, ‘Though He slay me,I will hope in Him.’
Through all his testing, Job was faithful to God.
Job 23:10, ‘But He knows the way I take; When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.’
‘He knows where I am going and when He tests me, I will come out as pure gold’.
Job 42:5,6 ‘I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear;But now my eye sees You; Therefore I retract,And I repent in dust and ashes.”
When Job saw the Lord, he repented thoroughly.
James 5:11, ‘We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord’s dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.’
Because when Job endured his testing and trials, he is blessed. Our Lord is full of compassion and is merciful, when we are going through different trials and testing. In His love, He is doing everything! There is a vision, from God’s heart for us, because it is necessary for God to test us, so that we will be conformed to His likeness. This is God’s vision for our lives. We need to come out as gold, from all of these!
Malachi 3:3, ‘He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the Lord offerings in righteousness.’
God is our sanctifier. He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver. He wants to present us to the Lord as an offering in righteousness.
Few women were reading this scripture of smelter and purifier of silver, so they wanted to go see by themselves, they went and found a silversmith in their locality and they reached and went in to see him work. They were discussing, how he does it, he was explaining them that the only way he can purify and refine the silver is to hold it in the middle of fire, where the flames are the hottest, so that all the impurities are burnt away! The woman asked him, ‘why do you want to stay the entire time while the silver is being refined? The silversmith said, he should not only stay there, and also to keep his yes on the silver, all the time. Because if it is left in the fire, even for a long time, it would be damaged. Then the woman asked one more question that how would he know the exact moment the silver is fully refined? Then the silversmith, smiled and said, ‘It is very easy! I know, it is refined, when I see my image reflected on it!’ This is what exactly, God is doing in our lives. God wants to purify us. He is our sanctifier. God knows our heart. He knows the corruption inside of us! The filthiness inside our heart, the pride! When God allows for us to go through trials and testing in our lives, He has a purpose, a vision like the silversmith; the product should be defect-free. A beautiful product. Gods wants to see in us a final product where we are conformed to His image, to the likeness of Jesus Christ. One day when we see Him, we will be like Him. We are pre-destined to be conformed to the image of God.
Romans 8:29, ‘For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren’;
He wants us to present as a pure bride, blameless and holy.
Ephesians 5:26, ‘so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.’
This is what God is doing in our lives, individually and as a Church. That He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. We need to examine ourselves when we are going through the testing and trials, His purpose in it, we should see ourselves and come to the Lord with a repentant heart.
1 Corinthians 10:13, ‘No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.’
TPT Version, ‘We all experience times of testing, which is normal for every human being. But God will be faithful to you. He will screen and filter the severity, nature, and timing of every test or trial you face so that you can bear it. And each test is an opportunity to trust him more, for along with every trial God has provided for you a way of escape that will bring you out of it victoriously.’
God is still on His throne. When we go through testing and trials, we need to believe that He is still on the throne. He is keeping His eyes on us, like silversmith is refining the silver. He is continually keeping His eyes on it, every moment, all the time. He will screen and filter the severity, nature, and timing of every test or trial you face so that you can bear it. He is still on the throne. He will test the righteous. Let us submit ourselves to the Lord to fulfill His will in our lives.
Psalms 11:4, ‘The Lord is in His holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men. 5 The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked,And the one who loves violence His soul hates’.
May God bless us.
