Proverbs 4:23 Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.
William James said, “Begin to be now what you will be hereafter.”
I hear it often,” I just want to be like Jesus.” Then, within minutes of saying those words, these same people turn around and say or do something ungodly without any thought or in some cases without noticing it. James 1:20 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. This joke comes to mind when I see and hear this contradiction in terms: Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
All joking aside, we often find ourselves in a position of God giving us the test, then the lesson coming after we inaccurately interpreted the test. When I was a young Christian I used to think this way of teaching was unfair and that God was always using a catch twenty-two method to make sure I would fail and be in line to be punished. The angry God view of everything.
As I grew in the love of God I realized that this way of teaching me was one of the ways to become like Jesus and that the failure (for a lack of a better word) of the test was how I could set my heart to walk in the will of God. The test was to show me where I needed to grow, and that became a blessing to me as I grew in the love of God because God was using His love to help me accomplish His loving ways. We have a negative view of testing because of the school systems we were all raised in. The cold harshness of you passed this time and you failed the next left us dealing with self-worth problems rather than God’s view of us as in we are worth everything to Him. Since we are worth everything to God, He makes sure the tests are helping us grow by His loving guidance and helping us be who we are in Him.
We read in the Psalms that King David looked forward and asked to be tested so that he could find the exact will of God for his life. He also knew that all the tests were to help him become reliant on God’s love for existence. Psalm 26:2 Prove me, O LORD, and try me; test my heart and my mind. 3 For I have always been mindful of your unfailing love and have lived in reliance on your faithfulness. He knew the test was for the blessing of the heart, because from the heart life would be established. Prov. 4:23 Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.
We should be saying like David, “Go ahead Lord, and search my heart and fix what needs fixing.” Psalm 103:23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. Yes, go ahead Lord and test my metal that it may prove righteous in Christ. Deut. 7:9 Know therefore that the LORD thy God, He is God, the faithful God, which keeps covenant and mercy with them that love Him and keep His commandments to a thousand generations.
I can hear some of the thoughts out there concerning what I determine to be God’s testing. I am not talking about the ones who teach – God gives us cancer to teach us something or God killed off part of your family to teach you something. No, and no again. God is not like that. John 10:10 The thief comes not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
Life happens all around us every day and our lifetime accumulations of what God has done in our hearts will determine how and what we do when life happens. The result of all the lessons and testing will manifest when life is going on day by day. When we come through the fires of life we will see that we have abundant life.
Start living out what is in your heart for eternity today. Live like we are already in heaven as the word says we are. Eph. 2:5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace ye are saved; 6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
You may be going through the most difficult and painful time in your life. This is not the time to roll over and deteriorate. Now is the time to trust in all the tests that you have experienced and accomplished with God who was and is at your side the whole way. Deut. 31:6 Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Blessings on us all.
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