If I said, “I don’t believe in trials and tests”, I can see how it could be a misleading oversimplification. To say it more clearly, what I don’t believe in, are the prevalent religious misrepresentations of what is a trial or test, where they come from, why they come, and who is responsible. Bottom line, I do not believe in blaming God for what Satan does; nor do I want to attribute to Satan, what God does.
There are far too many scriptures that speak of trials, temptations, and being proven, to simply ignore them. Since openly ignoring scripture is a foolish position to defend, most religious teachers will try to come up with some kind of interpretation or explanation that satisfies them. The problem with that is that human tendency to interpret the hard truths of God’s Word in a way that assigns no personal responsibility, requires no change in a person’s life, and doesn’t make anybody uncomfortable.
The hard truth is, that we are engaged in mortal combat, spiritually… like it or not. You either fight, or die. Fighting is not easy. It’s not comfortable. It’s not something you do at your convenience, or on a prescribed schedule. The only battles you can choose the time and place of, are the offensive attacks that you initiate. But Satan is also an offensive fighter, not one to sit idly by, content to simply defend his kingdom from your attacks. So neither can we ever let down defensively.
One of Satan’s favorite strategies is to deceive us as to who is our friend, and who is our foe. If Satan can get us to attack our own source of supply, put up walls against our friends, and open the gates to the enemy, he’s won, and we’re done. Unfortunately, throughout time, he’s been pretty effective with that plan.
That is exactly what he aims to do by confusing the truth about trials, temptations, and tests. Get Christians to reject their deliverer, accuse God, even resist God, and NOT resist the real killer. Get them to accept something evil as something good from God, when it’s the devil stealing, killing, and destroying. And then turn them against their own heavenly Father who is trying to help them pass a test to step up higher, and receive good things… a healing, a deliverance, an advancement, more authority, a greater anointing.
This subject is way too big to cover in one little post, but it’s a start. I know this is helping some, so I’ll continue later. God is GOOD! ALL the time!
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