A Time of Testing

Rest assured that you will be tested if you try to walk righteously before the Lord. In fact, the deeper your walk with Christ, the more intense your testing will be. Scripture makes this clear. “The people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits… Now when they fall, they shall be aided with a little help… And some of those of understanding shall fall, to refine them, purify them, and make them white, until the time of the end; because it is still for the appointed time” (Daniel 11:32-35, NKJV).

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.

Now, you may be asking, “Why am I being tested? Why is this happening to me?”

Remember your school days? When a school test was given, it revealed how much you had actually learned from what you had been taught. However, 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 unannounced pop quizzes. Yet the Lord has told us to be ready to be tested at any time, and these tests will continue until Jesus returns.

David often spoke of being tested and tried: “I know also, my God, that you test the heart and have pleasure in uprightness” (1 Chronicles 29:17). “You have tested my heart; you have visited me in the night; you have tried me and have found nothing; I have purposed that my mouth shall not transgress (Psalm 17:3).

Beloved, all who love the Lord will go through fiery trials. They will be purged of all that is not like Christ in preparation for the wedding of the Lamb.