TESTING GENUINENESS

 

Testing boundaries is inevitable. It will happen.

It happens at different times and seasons.

It happens with different motives and reasons.

Sometimes they come as offenses or temptations to sin against God and man.

One day Jesus said to his disciples, “There will always be temptations to sin, but what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting!" (Luke 17:1 NLT)

Then He said to the disciples, “It is impossible that no offenses should come, but woe to him through whom they do come!" (Luke 17:1 NKJV)

Sometimes they come as persecution and trials.

Testing the genuineness of our faith through trials is for our ultimate good and to the glory of God. It purifies us, like gold is tested and purified by fire.

"Be assured that the testing of your faith [through experience] produces endurance [leading to spiritual maturity, and inner peace]. And let endurance have its perfect result and do a thorough work, so that you may be perfect and completely developed [in your faith], lacking in nothing." (James 1:3-4 AMP)

God permits and uses it for His good working

There is no shadow without substance, no echo without sound, no ripple without initialization, no light without a lightsource, no effect without a cause, no fruit without roots, no life without seed, no output without input. 

There is no salvation without saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His sacrifice on The Cross.

There's no spiritual life without spiritual birth.

There's no eternal glory without true salvation. 

There's no Christian walk without Christ within.

No fruit of the Spirit without life in the Spirit. 

Furthermore, there is no authentic relationship without mutual respect and mutual honesty. 

No true Christian ministry without true knowledge of, personal training or preparation by, and total surrender or commitment to Christ. 

No validation or promotion without examination. No education without information and application. No triumph without trials. No growth without challenges. No strength without strain. No nourishment without nutritional input.

No crown without a cross.  

Obstacles are meant to be overcome. Hurdles are meant to stretch you. Trials and temptations are meant to toughen and strengthen you. 

Discipline is designed to teach and train us. Even failure teaches us valuable lessons about ourselves, other people and many other things.

In engineering, testing limits by the application of higher-than-expected pressure is a necessary post-design and operational procedure to assure the strength of materials or equipment.

Even the Lord Jesus was tested by the Devil. 

The temptations tested His submission to God and readiness for ministry. It clearly revealed that He was totally submitted to God's Will, was not driven by self-will and was loyal to God not his love for self, aka self-love.

"Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil." (Matthew 4:1)

When agents of darkness seek the presence or attention of a person of light, it is not to provide any good thing but to diminish the light (truth).

Satan anoints and commissions reps to cunningly gain access (as friendly foes) to his targets, usually children of God, particularly instruments of truth. 

But people who live by principles have cut off from such ungodly alliances or associations and have set boundaries for their lives. Past is past.

One motive tests the boundaries to be sure that it is genuine and sincere as professed, or strong and principled as indicated. This is done with good intention of "examining before embracing" and "investigating before investing". 

I welcome genuine testing of my boundaries and principles. I reckon every sincere testing of my genuineness or realness to be a noble activity and necessary procedure. I am certainly not infallible but I desire and am determined by God's trusted help to maintain boundaries and to live a life of principles.

Let truth do its work. I submit wholly to Truth. 

I also gladly submit to wholesome and just scrutiny, investigation and correction, where necessary.

I have examined myself to understand my flaws.

In the coinage of Aristotle: "An unexamined life is not worth living."

I will be very grateful for the authenticity and accountability value addition of genuine and godly support systems.

Truth is life. Let there be Truth and Justice!

Other motive seeks to cause to stumble or at least have an occasion to accuse and discredit, even if there is no sin yet they are looking for an opportunity to concoct a false narrative of "appearance of evil". 

They really wish, hope and pray (evil prayer) to find a reason to accuse, in order to manipulatively and craftily hold out a biblical basis to disfellowship. 

They actually play football with people's lives: they step on you, stump on you, then pass you on to their fellow practitioner of wickedness (worker of iniquity) being evil teammates. 

My position is clear: 

I am not bothered by who believes me or not.

I am not looking for carnal validation from men.

I am not bothered if the entire religious industry and the entire dark world system reject me, as they indeed must as aforesaid by Christ to His disciples. 

Be encouraged with these words of our Lord, dear child of God. “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.” (John 15:18-19)

This verity is clear to me and is true before The LORD God Almighty (His Name is Hallowed!): 

I belong to Yeshua Ha-Mashiach. 

I am a child of the Living God.

I no longer give access to, or keep company with, children of disobedience and darkness, because I am of the light; and "light and darkness have no fellowship" even as I have indeed experienced first hand that "evil association corrupts good morals."

Also, I have no interest in being part of any so-called church that is not truly of Yahweh but is a spiritual lie and contraption filled with religious deception.

Deception is darkness. Selah.

When light comes, sin is seen, confessed and forgiven; blemish is spotted and cleaned; error is realised and rectified; falsehood is discerned and corrected; and deception is exposed and avoided. 

I previously sinned against God and entertained a period of darkness, depravity and debauchery in the company of dedicated sinners of this wicked world.

By the mercies of God, I deeply recognized and repented of my sins. 

I also felt it good or necessary to uncover or confess my sins and past life to trusted Christian leaders. 

At this point, whether I am accepted or rejected, embraced or ridiculed, trusted or doubted, I am not at all bothered, worried or disillusioned.

I know that "I am accepted in The Beloved." 

"My sins, which are many, are forgiven."

Praise and glory to Yeshua my God and Savior!

"Worthy is the Lamb that was slain!" 

May His Church on Earth be strengthen. Amen.

God bless and help all true pastors and believers.

I thank God for faithful teachers of sound doctrine.

God in His Holy Scripture forbids me from unwisely submitting myself to the strange fire, false gospel and corrupt authority of any insincere manipulator as mentor in the false religious system that is unwilling and unable to help my Christian walk and spiritual growth but only seeks to control, usurp and take undue advantage of material matters where their interest lies, whilst using masterful maneuvers and mixed signals, according to the riches and the order of "Satan the father of lies (deception)".

Such is the deceitfulness of false religion, which the Adversary uses to debase and destroy lives in a subtle manner. It is infact far worse than open sin. 

As evil and despicable as sin is, yet more terrible is false Christianity (false Christs) to God and man..

It is the worse of all evils. Satan is its sponsor. 

Worse still, The Deceiver is its very originator.

It is after the order of Judas and the Pharisees. 

God's Eternal Judgment and Wrath awaits such.

The LORD is to be feared. To Him be all glory!

I belong now and forever to the Only True God Yahweh who is fully revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. 

God's Will be done in and through me.

In life or death, in plenty or paucity, in acceptance or rejection, in fellowship or disfellowship, loved or hated, supported or persecuted...

His Will be done and His Name glorified.

I'm no longer about self-preservation but about surrender to the Will of The Father and the Lordship of Christ, all to the Glory of The One True God.

Now to whom it may concern:

I am not asking you not to hurt, reject, falsely accuse or persecute me but just so you are aware (as it has herein been told you) of what you are doing and who it is you are hurting. 

And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’ (Matthew 25:40)

Freely I received Grace, freely I testified to Truth.

These Christian writings are my little contribution to those to whom it is given to read and understand. 

Believe or disbelieve. Repove or disprove. Fellowship or disfellowship. Reception or rejection. Train or taunt. Test or tempt. Engage or disengage. Encourage or discourage. Credit or discredit. 

Those choices are yours. 

Yet nothing happens outside of God's Sovereign Will, Power, Knowledge and Permission. 

Everything that happens will bring Him glory.

To Him absolutely belongs the glory, and judiciously so, for His Hand is in everything. Mystery? Selah!