To Encourage You

1 Peter 1:6-7 “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

One of the things testing does is reveal preparation.  Another thing it does is reveal the true nature of a thing.  I like to fish. Fishing involves the use of fishing line and tying many knots with that line.  Seldom can we know the real strength of either a line or a knot by just looking at it.  However, when we put it to the test by stressing it with the pressure of pulling on it, we find out if the line is strong and holds or weak and breaks. The same for a knot. Either it holds under pressure, or it pulls out and proves that our effort to tie that knot was faulty. 

Pressure does the same thing regarding the character of a person.  Anyone can seem so pleasant, kind, and loving when others are pleasant, kind, and loving towards them. However, put those qualities to the test by way of an unpleasant, unkind, or unloving person and we can see whether these wonderful qualities are part and parcel of one’s true nature, or a façade that covers up the “real you” hidden inside. 

That’s the way it is with the Christian faith.  A person can claim to be a Christian (in fact I find that most people I meet claim this in one way or another), but a true Christian is a follower of Jesus Christ.  They may not be perfect, but their life is directed in such a way that their desire is such that they long to be like Christ, showing His character, like his longsuffering patience, mercy, kindness, compassion, and love. 

God loves believers enough to not allow them to go through life deceived about themselves.  As we are told in the verses above, God makes a practice of testing the genuineness of our faith.  Of course, He sees our heart and He knows us perfectly, so the test is never a means to reveal anything to Him.  The test reveals to us what is truly inside our heart.  If you’re like me, seldom do I see in times of testing, all the things I would have hoped to see.  I get impatient at times. I doubt. I fear – none of which should be characteristic of a believer.  But God lovingly continues to test me to show me my constant need of His grace.  It shows me that I need to press on, never to “rest on my laurels” and never to be satisfied and smug with how holy I am.  It’s when the testing comes, when the squeeze is on, that the inside things become visible on the outside.  And when those inside things don’t look so good, we need to remember, as Peter tells us above, that this is all in the refining process.  In God’s awesome providence “he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).  He tests us for our good to make us more and more how we truly want to be, i.e., like Christ.  It’s a lifelong struggle, full of trials, but in the end, we have one of the most precious promises in the entire Bible in these words: “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). 

May God help us to hold fast to Him during the trials of life and may He continue to form in us an ever-increasing Christlikeness until we reach that day when we shall completely and forever be like the Savior who loved us and gave Himself for us, regardless of how unworthy of this we were when it all began.