The test does not build character. The test reveals the character you build in the mundane of life.
The test comes because of life, living in a broken, incomplete, fallen universe filled with and dominated by a spirit condition of darkness. The test comes because we cannot see and hear All. The difficulty–that tests us–comes because we walk in trusting faith. We do not and cannot lean upon our own understanding.
The hall of faith fame lists God trusting Himself to create what did not exist from His communicated passion: “I want this. Christ will create what I want.”
The subsequent discussion of faith is entirely–without exception–about getting God what God wants. Abel obeyed God’s prescription for worship, so trusting faith in God’s instructions gave him a testimony of being and doing right. Enoch did what God wanted so well that God apprehended him and moved him somewhere else.
The list goes on with the same theme: a person became and did what God told him to. That is trusting faith: submission to instructions that lead to enduring tests of obedience, preparing a faithful person to finish what God wants.
I am not fully obedient until I finish. I cannot finish without submission. I cannot submit unless I endure. I cannot obtain the strength of will to endure, so I deepen trust in God’s Words.
I hear a revealing communication of what God wants. I believe God communicated it through a sent person. I trust God and believe the revelation to the point of being convinced. I live and act with the reprioritization of my values, living a lifestyle without further evidence that God is right.
The test is life itself more often than any other measurement. The mundane of life, everyday rhythms and relationships, test my priorities to measure my endurance.
Nothing tests a believer more than a life contrary to natural reality and a world controlled by satanic lawlessness.
“I have said these things to you,
John 16:33
that in Me you may have wholeness as all the particulars of you and your life come into healthy wholeness [even though]
in the cosmic order (the world under the dominion of strategic spiritual lawlessness), you will have pressure and stress–pressed into a small place because you do not belong in the larger one;
But remain bold! I have overcome the cosmic order.”
The keywords of peace and consistent boldness come from “I have spoken these things to you.”
A word from God
believed by trusting faith that alters the lifestyle
through submission to a process lived out to its consequences,
against all opposition testing that submission by measuring obedience,
moves you in Christ to overcomer conditions He inaugurated and shares with you,
so your convinced heart remains bold in the correct behavior.
The test is often life itself.
The test does not build character. The test reveals the character you build in the mundane of life.
