YOU ARE BEING TESTED

Rest assured that if you are trying to walk righteously before the Lord, you are being tested. In fact, the deeper your walk with Christ, the more intense your testing will be. Scripture makes this clear:

"The people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits. . . . Now when they shall fall, they shall be [helped] with a little help. . . . And some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed" (Daniel 11:32-35).

A great time of testing is coming upon "those of understanding." Just who are these who will be tested? They are the righteous, those who do exploits for the Lord, who walk with God and have the wisdom of Christ.

Right now, you may be asking, "Why am I being tested? Why is this happening to me?"

Remember your school days? When a test in school was given, it revealed how much you had actually learned of what you had been taught. Yet Paul spoke of a different school, one where we are "learning Christ" and are "being taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus" (see Ephesians 4:20-21). If you belong to Jesus, you are in His school. You may have thought you had graduated, but that will not happen until you are in glory.

When I was in school, I hated "pop quizzes," unannounced tests. Yet the Lord has told us to be ready to be tested at any time, and these tests will continue until Jesus returns. All who love the Lord are going to go through fiery trials and be purged of all that is not like Christ, in preparation for the wedding of the Lamb.

David often spoke of being tested and tried: "I know also, my God, that thou triest the heart, and hast pleasure in uprightness" (1 Chronicles 29:17). "Thou has proved mine heart; thou hast visited me in the night; thou hast tried me, and shalt find nothing; I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress" (Psalm 17:3).