Do not put the Lord your God to the test. [Matthew 4:7b GNT]
In 1976 my diabetic wife Ellen thought that God was telling her to stop taking insulin.
She began to feel bad and decided to look at what the bible said.
She opened the book and her eyes fell to this verse in the book of Acts:
"How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord?"We were both very young Christians.
We did not understand that getting this kind of biblical direction was pretty ill advised.
Nevertheless, God used this to help us.
Ellen immediately gave herself an insulin injection.
Later that year she received wise counsel with our Christian doctor.
He said that she would know if God healed her because she would have an insulin reaction.
It is interesting how Satan, and our own desires, cause us to test God.
So often they use the bible to appeal to our flesh and deceive us.
Our desires for miracles and healings can sometimes be a source of temptation.
So often we can misuse the scriptures.
We believe that we are acting in faith.
In fact we are simply, and foolishly, testing God.
At the heart of it all is trust.
Will we trust God in the midst of suffering and difficulty?
Or will we challenge God by putting him to the test?
Will we lean into our hearts or into our heads.
Will we find comfort in the bible and let it assure us of his goodness?
Or will we use it to test the very nature of God?
In the end, the choice is ours.
To test God is to not trust him.
To trust the Lord is to not need proof that he is with us.
Teach me Lord to discern your voice, and your will, as I read the scriptures.
... this devotion is part of the Red Letters series. Click here to read more.
What a good illustration of that verse.
ReplyDeleteSatan sure is the deceiver, from Eve to now... must be on guard at all times, as he sounds so "Biblical" in his deception.
Good word for today.