THE TRIAL OF YOUR FAITH

“And through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see. So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So, when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honour on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.”

1 Peter 1:5-7 NLT

Have you wondered, as I have often done, why life is so full of hardships? We no sooner get through one struggle than we are into another. Why can’t we just get on with the business of living instead of having to navigate one difficulty after another?

When we left our old life of selfishness and sin behind and experienced the wonder of God’s grace and forgiveness, we thought that life would be plain sailing. Why has it become tougher and more complicated than ever?

The more I think about it, the more I realise that God has introduced something into our lives that is more precious than gold… faith. He gave us faith in Him by His grace when we heard about His gift of salvation through Jesus.

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”

Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV

This gift of faith came to us in seed form. It was enough to believe in Jesus, but it needs cultivation to grow into fully-formed faith that sustains us through life’s hardships.

So, we ask the question, “How do we grow our faith?” The answer is simple… by trusting God in tough times!

My journey with Jesus over many years has taught me that God values our faith in Him above everything. He is constantly testing us through hardships of one kind or another to see whether we will trust Him in our darkest days. Every difficulty we face is a test. If we believe in God’s sovereignty, then we must acknowledge that God either sets up or permits these challenges to test our trust in Him. Nothing happens by chance.

Peter realised this fact and summed it up in our opening quote. Our faith is of greater value than gold. If gold must be purified by melting it in the furnace to release impurities, how much more must our faith be put through fiery testing. Gold will perish with the old-world system when Jesus returns but not our faith. Our faith in God’s promises is the only guarantee that we will endure until Jesus comes.

… “But when the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?”

Luke 18:8 NLT

Faith is the golden thread that connects us earthly beings to the unseen realm where God lives and reigns. To believe in and trust God through thick and thin releases God’s power to intervene in our circumstances. We receive grace to overcome fear and anxiety and God’s mercy to help us when we call on His name.

‘So, let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.”

Hebrews 4:16 NLT

The more often we experience God’s gracious intervention when we call on His name, the more convinced we become that He is always reliable, trustworthy, and faithful to His promises. The more we trust Him in the dark, the more we experience His supernatural peace that has no explanation in the natural.

This peace, Jesus said, is His peace which has a powerful role to play in our troubled lives. Paul called God’s peace “a referee” which acts in our lives like a referee in a sports game. The referee stops the game to correct an error so that the game can continue according to the rules.

When we fail to believe God’s promises in any situation in the game of life, we lose God’s peace and feel a disturbance in our hearts. We have exchanged the truth for a lie by believing our fears instead of His Word. Our “referee” has stopped the game to correct the error. When we return to the truth of God’s Word, our peace is restored, and we can continue by trusting in God’s faithfulness in every situation.

We grow our faith until we are no longer troubled by trials and hardships because we are learning, by trusting God in any and every difficulty, to stay in the Word. We sail the tempestuous sea of life with Jesus at the helm.

Is there any point on this journey when God no longer needs to apply this rigorous training? When I look at the lives of some of God’s great saints in the Bible, I am inclined to believe that it is true. God eases off the pressure because it is no longer necessary.

Two characters among many, come to mind, one from the Old and one from the New Testament.

Abraham’s life was a journey into faith. He began as a wobbly pagan with many doubts and failures. He grew in faith until he reached the final test, to offer his son as a sacrifice in obedience to God’s instruction. Abraham obeyed without question, a powerful demonstration of his implicit trust in God.

“It was by faith that Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice when God was testing him. Abraham, who had received God’s promises, was ready to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, even though God had told him, “Isaac is the son through whom your descendants will be counted.” Abraham reasoned that if Isaac died, God was able to bring him back to life again. And in a sense, Abraham did receive his son back from the dead.”

Hebrews 11:17-19 NLT

God’s word to him when he was about to plunge the knife into the heart of his son was, “Now I know that you fear God…” He passed the final test with flying colours. How do we know that?

In the chapters after this test until his death, there is no record of God testing Abraham again. He remarried and had more children but… nothing seemed to go wrong.

And what of the Apostle Paul? In his writings, Paul hints at his state of mind in his journey of faith. Yes, God called him to suffer and suffer he did. He records some of the many hardships he endured as the greatest of all the Apostles, but he also wrote things like… “I have learned…”, “I am persuaded…”, “And we know…” These all point to one thing. Paul trusted God implicitly in every situation.

As tough as the hardships were that he was called to endure, his faith was rock-solid. He could encourage others because his faith had been tested and brought out of the fire as pure as molten gold.

So, what do we conclude, then?

1. Your faith will be tested and retested until God can say of you, “Now I know that you fear God…”

2. Tests come in many forms and disguises. We will continue to fail until we recognise the source as God, not the devil, and learn to submit and obey without question.

3. When the calm finally comes, don’t be suspicious of God or anticipate an impending disaster. Live in the moment and celebrate God’s goodness in bringing you through the storms to a haven in Him.

4. Keep resting on that promise that brought you through to a place of security and peace and trust your peace to keep you travelling with Jesus to your destination in the Father’s house.