To Encourage You

1 Peter 1:6-9 “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. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

Perhaps the greatest tragedy for a professing believer in Jesus Christ will be to realize one day, when it is too late, that their “so-called” faith wasn’t genuine.  Jesus warned about this when He said “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father Who is in heaven. On that day many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and cast out demons in Your name, and do many mighty works in Your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’” (Matthew 7:21-23). 

So, how do we know? Are there ways that we can know?  How can we be sure that those Jesus was speaking about in Matthew 7 are not you and I?  Well, throughout the Bible we are given tests that are designed to enable us to examine the genuineness of our faith. They are ways we can know that the faith that we say we have is or is not the real thing. One such place is in the passage above from 1 Peter 1. Here Peter talks about “the tested genuineness of your faith.”  And what are those tests?  He names several. For one, it is a faith that endures trials. It’s a faith that, when tested by the fire, comes out the other side not weaker but stronger for the experience.  Many walk away from Christ in times of difficulty.  Although they may have made an emotional “decision” at one time or another to “believe,” you would never know it now. They’ve walked away from the church because someone crossed them, or they lost a loved one and that “proved to them” that there either was not a God or God was not Who they once thought He was, and they’ve moved on to an interest in other things.  Perhaps they became bitter for some reason.  They didn’t get what they deserved, or the cost was just too great, so their so-called “faith” is just a thing of the past. 

Another test: How do we value our faith?  Is it more precious than gold to us, or is money or other things that which we value most? 

Then there is the test of the love of Christ.  There are many people in this world that claim to be believers in Jesus, yet they are living lifestyles and embracing the very sins that the Lord hates.  To do so is not to show love for Him, for He has told us that “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15).  As we are told in 1 Corinthians 13, “love . . .  does not rejoice at wrongdoing,” yet many who would claim to be Christians openly promote and even take pride in such things. 

And one more test Peter gives us: the element of joy.  True faith produces joy, regardless of circumstances. Peter is specifically writing to Christians who were suffering greatly for their faith.  To confess Christ in the Roman empire in the first century was a completely different matter than confessing faith in the United States today, for to do so in the Roman empire often meant deprivation, imprisonment, torture, or death.  Yet, the believers of whom Peter speaks are people who, in spite of these circumstances, rejoiced “with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.”  They were bold in their faith, come what may, for their eyes were fixed on the eternal joy that was set before them, rather than the passing pleasures of this sinful world. 

So, do these things describe you?  Do you pass these tests?  Is your faith the real thing, or something else that’s not anything like the genuine faith about which Peter spoke.  May God help us to be brutally honest and heed God’s command to “Examine (our)selves, to see whether (we) are in the faith. Test (our)selves. Or do (we) not realize this about (our)selves, that Jesus Christ is in (us)? — unless indeed (we) fail to meet the test” (2 Corinthians 13:5).