Positive Christian Motivation

Patience and Gratitude in Times of Testing - Powerful Motivation

Make God's word your ultimate source of daily motivation as you tune in to this impactful episode filled with motivational messages, empowering life advice, inspiring teachings, and stories. Enjoy this remarkable blend of spiritual insights and empowering inspiration that motivates you to become the best version of yourself and nourishes your spiritual connection with God.

Duration:: 20m
Broadcast on:: 17 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Looking for a financial institution that has fewer fees, better rates, and gives back to the local community? As one of Colorado's largest credit unions, Belco offers great rates on products like our free boost interest checking and lower rates on loans, including our home equity choice line. Bank virtually any time, anywhere, through online banking and our mobile app. Becoming a member has never been easier. Visit belco.org or stop by any Belco branch, membership eligibility required, equal housing opportunity, all-own subject to approval, insured by NCUA. Belco, banking for everyone. "It's not a matter of if you will ever be tried and tested. The question is, when will you? It's not if it's a win. And just remember this, that everything taught must be tested. And my question to you is can you trust God and His process to develop and refine you over time?" Nobody likes tests, but you can't advance without it. So let me ask you, have you ever been tested by God? Now there's a big difference between testing and tempting. God will test you. No one likes it, but you can't advance without it. God will test you, but He will never tempt you. God tests you in order to ratify, certify, fortify, reinforce you when He finds a weak spot. So don't be afraid when God finds a weak spot in you because He's going to help you to strengthen that area. The enemy, on the other hand, will tempt you with a weak spot in your life. And when you give in, He uses it to destroy your future, your family, your testimony, everything that you have. Warren Wiersby has reminded us that a faith that cannot be tested cannot be trusted. For example, how would you like to get on an airplane that had never been tested? How would you like to have a doctor do surgery on you who had not passed some tests in medical school? Friend, God is going to give you some trials, some tests to see if your faith is real. The Bible says God tempted no man with evil, neither can he be tempted. The devil solicits us, tempts us to do evil, to cause us to stumble. God tests us to do good in order to cause us to stand. Now this is one of those testings that we have. What God wants to do is to make our faith strong and pure. You've got to trust God in the testing. Now in the Bible, a test is a trial that purifies and prepares the heart. A test is a trial used by God to purify and prepare the heart. You are being tested. Always. You're being prepared. You're being purified. We're always being shaped. Again, if you fail to see this, then you'll interpret the challenges of your life as random issues that you just want to avoid. You'll try to avoid any challenge. Now nobody gets excited about tests, but if you understand that you serve a master weaver who's going to weave all of this together, you will be able to discover that there is purpose in the troubles that come your way. For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow, so let it grow. For when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. First Peter chapter 1 verse 7, that the trial that is the testing of your faith, being more precious than a goal that perishes, though it be tested or tried with fire, might be found into praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus. When Jesus comes, don't you want to have a pure faith, like purified goal, then God's going to put your faith in the fire. Some of you right now probably have faith in the fire. Some of you are going through a test and ordeal. God means you no harm. God wants you to understand whether or not you have the real thing. Because tested faith is more precious than gold. When your faith is tested, it will grow. It will be refined. When Amy Carmichael took her girls to watch the goldsmith at work, she pointed out to them that the refiner never leaves the gold when it is in the fire. In every trial that you have faced, your Savior has all the time been invisibly present. Brother, sister in Christ, your faith will be tested. When you're looking for a financial institution that has fewer fees, better rates, and gives back to the local community. As one of Colorado's largest credit unions, Belco offers great rates on products like our free boost interest checking and lower rates on loans, including our home equity choice line. Bank virtually anytime, anywhere, through online banking and our mobile app. Becoming a member has never been easier. Visit belco.org or stop by any Belco branch. Membership eligibility required, equal housing opportunity, all-own subject to approval, insured by NCUA. Belco, banking for everyone. Faith is tested. It will be refined. It will grow. Tested faith is genuine faith. The tested faith that proves genuine will result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. The same trial that brings you paid in grief and sorrow right now will bring praise, glory, and honor. When you see Jesus Christ face to face. Job says in Job 23 10, "When he has tried me, I will come forth as gold." He said, "When the trial is over, God will be finished testing me and I will be better." James 1 3 says, "Consider it joy when you're in a trial." That's hard. Man, that's so hard. Paul says God's power is perfected in weakness. Do you believe that something difficult, tragic, or traumatic in your life can be meant for good by God? Because when you believe that, you take away one of the key weapons out of Satan's hand and you put it back in God's hand where it belongs. When you believe that, you change your story. Testing reveals where my faith really is, where my faith really is. My spiritual faith must be tested in the real world. Write this down. God will always provide a way for me to pass the test. The Lord will provide. You see, I don't have to cheat, lie, or steal. I just need to trust God because God's going to provide. That with each setback, each heartache, each moment of loss, each disappointment or moments where I might have wavered or even questions God's intentions and what he was up to, God was always doing something very intentional, very purposeful, and very meaningful behind the scenes. One of the ways that God grows you up is by testing you. When you work out in a gym, you test your muscles by lifting weights and the more weight you can lift, the more it tests your muscle, the more it grows your muscle. God builds your character the same way through a series of tests. Faith works like a muscle. It only grows stronger as it gets tested, as it gets strained. Muscles grow is that when you exercise, you're actually producing thousands of little tears in the muscle. But when your body recovers, it builds back muscles in those gaps and then the muscles get bigger. And that's how faith works. That's how faith works. God puts us in situations that tear our faith so that it can grow back stronger. Now, we don't necessarily like this plan, do we? But I've seen it happen so often that I'm inclined to say that it's God's standard of practice. Faith is the most important muscle in the Christian life and God's committed to strengthening it. And the goal of a test, all you teachers, you know this, all right? It's not to try to get you to fail, but to test you to reveal what you have. The goal of a test is what's in there, what's present, and then make it stronger. Again, James writes this, he says, he says, consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials, hard times of many times, because you know that the, what's the word? The testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. Trials and testing produce perseverance. They make you stronger. They reveal what's in there, and you didn't even know it was in there. Like, wow, I didn't know I was capable of that. And it strips away anything that doesn't need to be there. It's what we do with raw ore, right? We put it into a crucible, we put it into a furnace, and then the fire comes, and the trial comes, and it burns away what is useless. And what's left is pure and precious. James uses the word mature and complete, not lacking anything. We've got to change our minds a little bit. When we go through hard times, it's not what's God doing to me. It's like, what is God trying to build in me? What is God trying to make stronger in me that needs to get strengthened? And that's never easy. You do not get strong the easy way for listening me carefully, as it's been well said, a faith that can't be tested is a faith that can't be trusted, and God wants you to be able to trust your faith. God wants you to know your faith can be counted on. And so in this life, God will never tempt you, but you can be sure of this. God will test you. That's when he says hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny. And that's why I have never seen a strong person who had an easy past. So when God really wants to develop you, he's getting ready to send some rough situations your way, but it refines you. It refines you. You be sweating. You're hurting and you're going through these challenges, but it is refining something on the inside of you. And so whenever you get in a situation of testing and being tried, and you cannot control your circumstances, then control your focus and control your attitude. Control your focus and control your attitude. Because a bad attitude is just like a flat tire. You're not going anywhere until you change it. Here's what I would say to you. Don't allow anger and rebellion to turn a bad moment into a bad day or worse a bad life. Don't allow anger and rebellion. There's some people that never forgive and they've developed a heart of rebellion and they turn a bad moment, a bad situation into a bad day, a bad season, or worse a bad life. You don't have to let a bad moment turn into a bad life. Make the adjustments in yourself. Ask God, God, try me. Try me, Lord. And he says you've got to endure. He says you've got to endure many trials for a little while. It's just for a moment. It's just for a moment. It's a little while. So let God take you through that. And while you're in a trial, while you're in a test, you've got to learn to get God's perspective on the test. And remember while you're on the test, you'll be seeking God and it seems like the heavens are brass to you like you can't even get a word from him. Anybody ever felt like that? You're going through something and you can't get God to, you can't even hear him? Well, maybe it's because when you're taking a test, the teacher is always silent. But sometimes in the test, the teacher is silent. You don't hear anything. You don't see anything improving. You have to know in the dark moments God still has you in the palm of his hand. He knows it's difficult. He knows you feel overwhelmed. He knows you don't think you can go on. Don't worry. Help is on the way. We've been endures for a night, but joy is coming in the morning. Now keep standing one day at a time. Don't worry about tomorrow. You don't have grace for tomorrow, stand today. And when you get to tomorrow, you'll have grace for that day. Trust God during these times of testing. God has not forgotten you. God has not forgotten you. Do not interpret this time of testing as the absence of God, just the opposite. The Old Testament word for test comes from a Hebrew word that means to take a keen look at, to choose. To take a keen look at, to choose. So if you're being tested, it is because God is looking at you. He is choosing to prepare you for something in the future. God is fully engaged. He sees the needs of tomorrow and accordingly prepares the test of today. He sees the needs of tomorrow and accordingly, he prepares the test of today. How are you being tested? How are you being tested? Are you being tested emotionally? Are you being tested physically? Is your patience being developed? Perhaps a good question for you to ask your heavenly father is Lord, what's this test for? Or how am I being tested? And perhaps you can even say thank you, Lord. Consider it all joy, the scripture says. When you passed through various types of trials, you consider it. Thank you, Lord, that you would consider me worthy of this test. But you press into the test of today. You trust God in a season of testing and one more, you trust God for the timing. Here's what I say. Many of the tests that we experience in life are ultimately a test of our patience. Can you trust God? And can you trust his process to develop and to refine you over time? Because most of the time that you are actually being tested is not really a test of your faith as it is a test of your patience. That I've told you that the husband is coming, the wife is coming, the promotion is coming, the job is coming. I've told you that and we get impatient. It's not that our faith is challenged, our patience is tested. When you're waiting on something, when you're able to be patient while you have nothing, you show your character. So next time that you're waiting on the word to come true, understand that God is waiting for your character to be developed and for you to be refined. When you are being refined, it means that God is taking the unrefined parts of you out. You may be in this test right now, the win test where you've been waiting for an answer and that doesn't seem like there's any end in sight. You're going to win. When, Lord, when are you going to take care of this problem? When are you going to take care of this issue? When are you going to take care of this relationship? When are you going to take care of my finances? When are you going to take care of my health? When are you going to take care of my future? And you're just going, "Win, Lord, win." Faith is waiting for God's timing without knowing when. Some of you have been waiting a long time for your prayer to be answered, waiting a long time to be pregnant, waiting a long time to be married, waiting a long time for that boss to be fired, waiting a long time to be patient, trust God for the timing. God is always at work. God is always at work for the good of everyone who loves him. Our call is simply to wait while God works. You just keep trusting God in the testing. You just keep trusting God in the timing. To be sure, Joseph would be the first to tell you, life in the pit stinks. It does. But for all of its rottenness, it brings one beautiful blessing. When you're down in the pit, there's only one way to look. And that's up. You keep looking up. And the same God who reached in to rescue Joseph is the God who will reach in to rescue you. I don't know about that if you've experienced this, but God is rarely early, but he is never late. It may be taking longer than you thought. You were determined at first. You stood strong, but now it's been a long time. You're tired. Thoughts are telling you it's never going to work out. You'll never get well. Never see your family restored. Don't believe those lies. That test is not permanent. God has already set an end to the difficulty. You have to get your second wind. God didn't bring you this far to leave you. What he started, he's going to finish. Dig down deep and keep passing the test. Keep thanking him that it's on the way. Keep declaring what he promised. Keep believing when you don't see any sign of it. Stay in this attitude of faith. Faith is weeding on God's timing without knowing when. Faith is expecting a miracle without knowing how. Faith is trusting God's purpose without knowing why. Faith is continuing to persist without knowing how long. This is a test. Wherever you are, whatever's happening in your life, it's just a test. And with Jesus, you can pass. [Music]