Step out of the ordinary and fall face first into adversity. Watch yourself succumb to anger, upset, and things you know are harsh and wrong. What do you do? It's almost like watching yourself outside of yourself and you feel as helpless to stop that nasty person from emerging as truly if they were a stranger.
What happened? Was it a test of faith and did you fail that test? What does it mean to fail a test of faith?
Gold tried in fire is literally metal heated until it is melted to a liquid state. It takes tremendous heat to melt metal- we live in a world with metal all around us and we don't live in a world with puddles of melted metal around every corner. An exceptionally high heat is needed to reduce metal to a liquid state. If our faith is tried like gold in fire what does that tell us? The fire is going to get hotter than we can really imagine.
1Pe 1:7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ
Faith tested and tried.
Isn't it the test and PASSING the test what matters?
We go through life having to pass various tests. Tests in school, in higher education, in jobs- our skills are tested and based on our ability to score high enough on the tests we either pass or fail. If we fail the result can be loss of moving up a grade in school, it can mean the loss of a job, or the loss of a promotion.
I know a man who tried to pass an exam so he could advance in his job but after many years of trying to pass that test before retiring, he never did. He tried at a cost to himself- each exam taking money out of his own pocket just so he could advance to a higher pay grade and in prestige.
Whether successful or not, each position has its results, its consequences.
When our faith is tried we want to pass the test right? We want success because that success means eternal life with Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.
But you know what?
We have to ask ourselves a question. Does God measure our success and failure the same way we do? Jesus suffered and died - that was a success. However, many in that day considered His life and especially His death a failure. He should have been able to save Himself, kept Himself from being hurt, from being tortured.
That man who kept trying and failing I told you about- was there a special kind of success in His ability to keep trying to pass the test even though he never did? You hear the old saying all the time that it's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game. That failure is only giving up. Are they true?
Our test of faith- we might fail in our own eyes, but maybe not in God's. He may measure things differently than we do. What I mean is a test may come and just having the recognition of failure, the recognition that it was a test may go a long way to building your faith, having your faith become stronger so that in the end it really isn't an ultimate failure but a temporary setback. Perhaps this faith being like gold tried in fire is never giving up though the trials will come and some of them come without any warning with such a vileness you are all but destroyed. The ultimate test might just be having to cling to Christ and only Christ.
We don't know the end from the beginning, but we do know that Satan would have us so caught up in our seeming failures that we just give up looking to Christ at all.
We can't give up! We must understand that the trying of our faith strengthens it- not necessarily passing the test. One failed test may ultimately keep us from failing in the future. We might have to fail our test over and over again but we can't give up! We can't!
God is the one critiquing our lives and He judges differently. We have to hope and pray that we hold fast, that we don't let our faith fail no matter what test it is put to. Easier said than done, yes, but it is my prayer that God bless and keep us so that we never give up our faith, never.
By the mercy and grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ now and forever!
Amen.
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