Testing *OR* Proving
In the Bible, the word ‘Test” and the word “Prove” are sometimes used interchangably, depending on the English translation you’re looking at.
We can look at a grammer school test that shows whether or not we’ve learned to talk right. I mean speak correctly. Or maybe in Junior High, (or what’s called Middle School nowadays,) the test may show whether we have improoved our speling. I mean that our spelling has improved. Or by the time we reached High School, we might have had a test that was called a Pre-test that showed us where we still needed to grow in order to actuallyu pass the test when it comes along.
Then we grow up and the real tests begin, huh?
We all really do have something to prove. The only way to show that it’s really provable is to test it. Now the purpose of the test isn’t to show our shortcoming. It’s not even to show whether or not we’ve learned a lesson. It’s to show we HAVE learned. Not whether or not. Just whether. Yes. Not Yes or No.
3 x 3 = 9
It always will. It always has. And when that equation is written on a page and it sits in front of me, it’s not to test whether or not I know it. Duh. I got that one. I can work that out. Even if the 9 isn’t filled in for me, I can finish that equation because it’s inside of me; it was taught to me and I’ve experienced in my own life that it is true, and nobody can talk me out of it. 3 x 3 = 9. Everytime.
To me, that’s not a test. It’s a proof. Semantics, I know, but go with me on this.
There are non-negotiables inside of me which have been taught to me – by one teacher or another – and that I’ve expereinced to be true, and they become part of my very soul. I know them and nobody can talk me out of them. I’m married to them and it’s ’til death do we part! Still, from time to time, circumstances set a page in front of me with a question on it that asks me to confirm, “Is this really true?”
When I got to college I had developed a system inside of myself for taking tests. I usually didn’t get an “A” on my first test of any class. In fact, most times I got a B- or a C+. Shock! Me! A smarty-pants genius, getting a C? Yeah. That first test was, in my young mind, a throw-away that would get dwarfed by my successive victories. What I did on that first test was get to know how my professor tested. I learned, “Oh! That is the type of thing he is looking for,” so when I studied for tests, I knew what types of things to emphasize. “A+” after that made several of them ask me what I changed to boost my grade. My answer was that I studied better, and that satisfied them. The whole truth was that I studied my prof, and knew what they’d be looking for.
Gladly, I didn’t have any professors who actually *wanted* to trip up students in the tests. They wanted to have the students Prove they’d grasped the materials. They wanted to confirm that we understood.
Ah! Now we’re looking at a difference. Subtle, and trust me: not consistent, but a difference.
I think, for me anyway, that Testing shows where I can go until I fail, and Proving shows that I can succeed.
Sometimes we equate Tested with Tempted, and maybe that’s a good evaluation, but only sometimes. A temptation that two people experience may be a temptation for one person to stumble, and a confirmation to another that it’s not that big of a deal. Demand a four-year old to work their multiplication table up through their 3′s, and you’ll get a crying child. You’ve tested them and found them lacking.
God loves you. And when you are Tested in the way I described above, by a loving Teacher, it’s not to show how bad you are or how much of a failure you are or how dumb you are. It’s to show you your limits right now and to be there to offer this: In your weakness, God’s strength is shown to be perfect and complete for you!
Here’s the important part! Whenever you reach a testing time, have you noticed that the Teacher is usually quiet? He’s already taught you some things, and during the test the teacher is typically quiet. And since our Teacher is the Lord, you can count on two things:
1. If this is a Test, it’s not just going to show where you come up short, but shows where He can step in and fill that gap.
2. If this is a Proving time, it’s not just going to show you how far you’ve come, but shows a new high-water mark in your life.
Welcome Testing, as embarrassing and humiliating and hard as it may be, because with the right attitude it can make us rely on God so much more. Welcome Proving, as hurtful and painful and frightening as it may be, because He has brought you so much further than you’ve ever been, and farther than you ever thought you’d be. Look at yourself! Do you realize what a successful testimony you already are?
We were lost! We were a big fat “F”! You may have been a good person, but just like a smart person who doesn’t know the materials, you couldn’t pass an examination.
I guess that’s what I’m saying here. It’s an examination. It gives a genuine analysis of where you really are right now. An honest assessment of your capability right now allows you to know the capacity of what you can do right now. Then you go back to class (Thank you God for the school of hard knocks,) and learn the material because you have another test coming. Or a proving time. It’s an exam.
Fasting and Prayer Day 16
If you’re fasting a total fast — drinking only clear liquids, you know you have to stay close to the bathroom still. (Can you believe how honest this blog is?) All those toxins and waste and buildup are letting loose, and you’re cleaning your system out like never before! But the headaches might still be there. And you don’t have the stamina you have had before. Don’t despair! This is only a few short weeks, and the fast isn’t designed to make your physical body amazingly strong. It’s to make your spirit strong; it’s drawing you closer to God while you pray and read the Word.
There’s also the mental clarity that is coming. God can give you ideas clearer than you’ve had before. I tease that it’s because you no longer have that food stuck in your spiritual ears. Maybe there’s some truth to that. I will quickly add that every single idea that runs through our minds isn’t necessarily from the throneroom of the Almighty. Weigh your decisions wisely with prayer and the Word. Nothing’s wrong with counsel. Ideas right now from God don’t have to get shot down in committee, but you might actually amaze those in your counsel circle by the clarity and value of those ideas right now.
If you’re living on a modified fast, including fruits and vegetables, you’re doing so excellent! It worked for Daniel and his friends, and at the end of their testing period they looked healthier and more wholesome than peers who ate and drank anything they wanted. Isn’t it funny? Discipline in our diets is good. Not using discipline in our diets makes for an undisciplined lifestyle and none of us what that anyway!
If you have particular food items you’ve removed from your diet during the fast, and if there are activities on top of that food restriction that you’ve removed (TV, Web-browsing, etc.,) be sure to couple all that with reading the bible and praying. God can absolutely honor that. He will meet you where you are and bless your obedience to Him.
Temptation is a regular visitor in everyone’s life, and I guess in every area of life too. Temptation is NOT a sin!! Did you get that? Temptation is not a sin. It’s a trial. A test. It’s a proof that you are made of sterner stuff than the temptation. Yesterday after church, Christopher and I went to the store to pick up something after church and they were cooking ribs on the barbecue out front. Grrr. It smelled like a corner of heaven will probably be. Okay, maybe they won’t be cooking pork ribs in heaven, but you know what I mean.
So the test came. Peer pressure would keep us from falling because my son doesn’t want to disappoint his daddy, and Daddy wants to set a great example for his son. Plus, it’s not going to kill me not to eat flesh for a few weeks. Because my son is 14 and active in baseball at school and still growing, his fast is not as stringent as mine. It’s not a go-to-hell-for-breaking-fast sin for him to have some ribs! But he made me laugh when he took a great big sniff, sighed, and said, “Well, we’re coming back here in a couple weeks!”
You will feel better about yourself for holding true to your commitment through to the end. You may stumble and mess up and “cheat.” Don’t give up! You’re not disqualified. Get up and keep going forward. Pray like you really mean it!! Pray for your own strength. Pray for your Pastors. Pray for Promise. Pray for our city, state, nation, world! Pray for the church around the globe fighting for their faith when we have such freedom here. Read the bible and see what God has done for His children throughout history.
He’s still on the job. He’s still a faithful God. He’s the ONLY faithful God! And I promise, He is proud of you for your sacrifice and obedience. Keep moving forward. He has plans for you that are coming to pass.
Bible-reading day 16
Jacob’s name is now Israel. From time to time God’s chosen children, His nation of Israel, is referred to as the children of Jacob, and sometimes as the children of Israel. Jacob means the one who grasps and takes what he wants. Israel means the champion prince of God. Have you ever heard a mother ask her husband, “Where is your son?” when it’s really both of their kid? Or a husband say of his daughter, “She takes after her mother.”?
I think that sometimes when the Bible refers to the children of Israel as Jacob, it’s like a chiding, a sort of dig reminding them that they’re out of line. And refering to them as the children of Israel is like saying, “Good children! That’s my child.”
I don’t always feel like that’s what it’s saying, but it seems like it a lot.
Here in Genesis 46 and 47, Israel and all his household come down to a colony in Egypt seperated for them to flourish in. On the way in, Pharaoh gets up from his throne, leaves his palace, and goes to meet a herdsman named Israel.
Do you get that? Pharaoh was worshipped as a god himself. The people didn’t just obey him because he had an army to enforce his bidding. They considered him a god. Tradition tells us that the masses never got to see his face, that it was covered from unworthy eyes. But he didn’t summon Israel. He didn’t call him, ordering this foreigner to come before him for account of all he planned. He did not order Israel to report to the Pharaoh’s court to maintain the protocol that said: You come to me, I am the center of the universe. Israel was not even of the nation of Egypt. He had “nothing” to offer to the Pharaoh. “Nothing” to enhance his holdings. Pharaoh didn’t “owe” Joseph anything! He promoted Joseph out of jail, pardoned a fake charge of attempted rape against Potipher’s wife, and allowed a foreigner to run the country. As far as tradition dictated, Joseph owed it to the king to do everything and anything he was ordered.
No. That pharaoh knew the truth. Joseph had not only saved Pharaoh’s throne, but he had collected all the money, all the title deeds of all the property in the country, and had loan seed to the people with a 20% tax for all time. Double-tithe to the king. Joseph had made the Pharaoh the richest man, (oops, don’t tell anybody he’s not a god. It would be bad press,) in the world and he knew it.
So when Israel came into the countryside, this man of foreign blood brought his father into the Pharaoh’s presence. Not as a dignitary coming to negotiate a treaty that would benefit both counties. Not as an ambassador for a country Egypt feared. No. I think Joseph brought in his dad to talk to another dad.
No airs of, “Bow to the almighty Pharaoh,” and that sort of thing. But 47:7 says Joseph brought in his dad and SET him before the Pharaoh. I love that! Can you imagine the throneroom guards that stood there? Day after day. Week after week. Month and year after month and year. They were honored to stand in the very room to guard this god/king. And here comes a doddering old man who wasn’t even from their country, and he gets to SIT with the Pharaoh???!!!
They saw their Pharaoh so interested in Israel. It was their Pharaoh who was privileged to meet Israel even more than Israel was excited to meet their king. And it was Israel who blessed Pharaoh, not the other way around. And Pharaoh was so blown away by Israel himself that in 47:8 How old are you?
A gueard hears him reply, “130 years old,” and maybe he thinks, “This guy is a liar, and my king is going to cut out his heart! He’s going to kick these unworthy people out of our country!”
And it was Israel who blessed Pharaoh.
You and I may have some short-comings in this life. It’s life. We may wonder — at least I know I do sometimes — that even though God’s Word promises us harvest from our sowing, and abundance and all our needs met through Jesus, and *not* seeing that come to pass in the time that we want…well we’ve all got some place in our life where we think things could have been better if something had changed in the middle of that circumstance, huh?
If God had rescued Joseph out of that jail cell, he would never have ascended to a throne that was second only to Pharaoh’s.
We don’t own tomorrow. And today you may feel like you’re in a jail cell. You might see that a famine is wiping out all your worldly goods. You know: the goods that God blessed you with! And now they’re all being taken away in the middle of your faithfulness.
If you stay faithful, the bible also promises that you will reap if you don’t faint. Don’t grow weary with what you’re doing for Christ. Don’t let despair talk into your ear telling you it’s no use. And don’t let others who wish they had a voice into somebody…anybody’s life just blab and blab into your life either! God has a plan for you and it IS harder than you would have planned. But it’s also BETTER than you would have imagined.
He is with you. And when you get to the place God had in mind all along, it’s going to be YOU who is the blessing. Yeah, the ones who get blessed by giving you a chance, the ones who get blessed by opening a door for you, they do get blessed. But it’s YOU who will be a blessing to them greater than anything they have to offer to you. Why? Because you really are an ambassador. You really do represent a nation that they want (or really should want) to make a treaty with. Hebrews 11:16 refers to it as a Better Country. You represent heaven here on earth.
So go! Be a blessing! Actually work hard to make your employer wealthy…or wealthier! The world will stand in awe looking at you, wondering, “Where did this one come from?”
Don’t give up. Stand strong. God will bless you so much that you have abundance to bless others.
Promise Church Fasting and Prayer Day 14
If you don’t have a copy yet, print the Bible-reading plan we posted right here.
Today is Day 14 for the Promise Church Bible Reading plan on our corporate fast. Just yesterday morning Karen and I were talking with a long-time friend and the story of Joseph came into our conversation. Why? Because it’s fresh since we’re reading about his life’s story right now!
That’s a HUGE hint for all of us: read the Bible and the Holy Spirit will bring it back to your rememberance. But we have to put it in there to start with, huh?
So we’re talking with our friend, and I mentioned how God seems to very, very consistently move people into the *world* system for some kind of training, coupling it with the *God’s family* system training He has given them in order to complete their preperation process. Then, and only then it seems sometimes, are they ready for their Destiny to be fulfilled.
When I preach, I use my own life experiences as examples. Things like working the fast food restaurant when I was young, and the lessons I use today that I learned then. You know what I mean.
I don’t think it’s just that we should use all our experiences to help us today. I think the Bible shows us that God deliberately brings us through experiences that will enhance our ability and effectiveness. There’s no replacement for experience, right? That’s why I pay attention to other people’s experiences too. Sometimes I don’t have to go through things if I can learn from other’s lives.
So here in Chapters 41 and 42 of Genesis, Joseph is now brought UP. God’s miraculous empowering, (interpreting dreams,) coupled with God’s miraculous equipping, (Potipher’s house and the jail,) coupled together for the great promotion God had in mind all along.
We can’t look at the jail cell we might be in right now. We have to look at the Lord, and see where His eyes are looking. Why? Because He has a bigger idea in mind than anything we’ve considered so far.
And He knows how to use all that YUCK you’ve been through to make you the perfectly equipped person for the job!
Fasting and Praying at Promise Church
So excited to see REAL comments on the blog! I get so many comments every single day on this blog that it’s crazy! Why? Because they’re by Blog-bots spamming and looking for unmoderated blogs to slam their wares on.
But hooray! We’ve got a dialogue going!
We’re “in” Day #4 now, as we officially started Sunday at sundown.
What a great service tonight! Mainly because we’re not just Fasting! We’re Praying and Fasting, so having a Bible study on praying was entirely appropriate. The Lord’s Prayer is the model Jesus Himself gave to his disciples, so I think it is a perfect pattern for us to follow too!
Yes: Pray your prayer list. But at the end of the list, when you’ve prayed about everything on your page, we can still follow Jesus’ example and declare our Heavenly Father is Holy. That His Name is Holy. We can still announce out loud in our prayer that we pray His kingdom comes (and the sooner the better I say!) and that His will takes place in our homes, neighborhoods, workplaces, everywhere on earth like it does in heaven.
I love verse 8 of Matthew Chapter 6 because it comes right before a prayer that says ask God for our needs, but it says right up front that God knows our needs before we ask them. Yet, we are to ask them. Thank you God!
Forgiveness is a book series, sermon series, and television series all in one, and yet the crux is that you and I must must MUST forgive others. Period! God forgives us as we forgive others. Be eager to forgive.
Read the Lord’s Prayer. Pray it. Begin with it and then move to your personalized heart-felt communion with the Lord! I promise He will honor it.
Fasting and Praying
My stomach just asked my brain if my throat got cut.
Symptoms:
Hungry.
Headache.
Alert.
Slept pretty good.
I’ve gotten down to praying for things that I’ve prayed for before, and NOT had anything change. That may be God bringing me to a place of trusting Him more and more, or it may be a place of finally I’m prepared to receive the answer. Or both.
I don’t despise my water bottle (yet) and I’m really very, very pleased with my children because on their own they are making deliberate decisions on moving closer to God and fasting and praying and what more could a daddy hope for?!
Sunday sundown, Monday sundown, and it’s just Tuesday morning. You can do it! God is waiting on the other side of your sacrifice! This is your year if you want it to be! I’m not a motivational speaker…I’m a Bible guy. And I’m telling you, this could be your year if you really want it to be!
Promise Church Bible Reading Day 4
A couple events really stand out in these few chapters.
Number one. God told Abram He was going to bless him beyond measure, so leave all your family and household and go travel until I show you your new home. What is the first thing Abram does? Disobey God. Kinda. He does leave his homeland walking out in faith. It’s one of the greatest steps of faith in all the Bible. But he takes Lot, Lot’s family, and all the household he had gained in that land. Why do I care about that? Because it shows me that God can keep His promises in my life even when I mess up. Doesn’t that comfort you? It should!
Number Two. When they go to Egypt during the famine, Abram knew, and the Egyptians in fact did think this way, that his seventy-year old wife was pretty and they would kill him in order to take her. I guess they had a code there that said adultery is not okay, but murder is. Anyway, they really must have had Oil of Oley in their blood.
Three. After Lot chose to live by Sodom, the evil kings came to fight the other evil kings. No problem. Wars break out all the time. But as soon as they messed with Abram’s family, (Lot,) algtherets are off! You don’t mess with God’s family or you lose your rights. Abram gets his trained household servants and goes and kicks the life out of the kings who raised their hands against Lot.
Four. Melchizedek served communion thousands of years before Christ. There is something to that…
God cares for His children. I’m one! How about you?
Promise Church Bible Reading
Last night we read Genesis 8-11 before we went to sleep. Christopher sat on the edge of the bed, Karen laid on her pillow, and I read out loud. Typically when I am reading the Bible I read silently, as I read much more quickly than I can speak, but for this we are reading out loud. It is a nice family thing to share the Bible together. Kind of an intimate family thing. It wouldn’t matter if the cell phone rang while we were reading…it would just go to voice mail.
The flood finished, and I love that flat-out God proclaims that ALL the inhabitants of the earth descended from Shem, Ham, and Japheth. No question. The Creator of all began again from those three brothers and their wives. So if anyone wondered, “Did Adam and Eve have kids in the Garden of Eden?” or maybe, “Where did Cain or Seth’s wife come from?” It barely matters after the flood. Those had to marry their cousins to replenish the earth.
I’m no genetecist but as close relatives produce offspring, doesn’t that weaken the genetic code? In one single chapt we get a clear look at the decreasing lifespans of these ammi lies. From Noah’s 950 year life down to 200 for his great grand children. Wow!
We also get some other answers like how did people get all around the world if they were ALL in that one area. Well, one clan ended up traveling east, over into Asia (only it wasn’t called Asia yet,) and the land bridge from the easternmost tip or what would become Russia over to the future Alaska, and down onto the Americas. Another huge clan became seafaring people, so that opens up the eastern parts of the Americas and Australia too, huh?
I think the point is, when God scattered the people around the world when He confused their languages, it’s not just possible, but reasonable how He did it!
I was on my computer at lunch one time in my office and my assistant came in to have me sign some paperwork. I didn’t notice her at first, and she cme around my desk and saw what I was looking at on the Internet. “Is this leisure reading for you, Boss?”
She caught me red handed. My secretary discovered me looking at something she never would have suspected of here boss. What was it?
I was reading about the DNA progression link from the North African seat through the north, and down through the Americas. The article showed the unbroken link of relationship, and scientifically tracked how people likely ended up over here. I was fascinated that it agreed with what Genesis tells us.
Every time genuine science discovers something, it tends to show that the Bible is true. That’s just one more reason I trust the Bible when it isn’t “proven.”. Sooner or later, it is!
Promise Church Bible Reading
Day 2 of our Bible reading could open a TON of questions. So let me post some yes’s and no’s for you.
No. I don’t know who Cain’s wife was.
Yes. God insists we live, sacrifice, and come to him on His terms and not our own. Think about it: who is right? You or God?
No. I don’t know if the “sons of God” we’re angels.
Yes. There were people of great physical stature and accomplishment.
No. I don’t know how (or why) they lived so long before they had kids.
Yes. They lived that long in real physical years. Don’t try to read straight fact as allegory; it will mess up your ability to understand what God’s Word actually says. And it would train you not to trust the Bible.
No. I don’t know if dinosaurs were on the ark.
Yes. The flood covered the entire planet just like it says. Seriously. A local flood doesn’t even make sense anyway! Can you picture it? God says, “I am going to wipe out mankind and start again. Hey! I didn’t know there were more places to flood!”
No. I don’t know if the animals hibernated during the flood.
Yes. God’s plan worked.
Today when we baptize people, it’s a physical and spiritual manifestation of the flood. Death to the old, and salvation washing clean.
This is great reading! I can’t wait ’til tomorrow!
Happy New Year Promise Church
It’s about Two in the morning. The fireworks are done. The dogs have gone back to sleep. Karen and I laid down to sleep. And now I’m back up since sleep is eluding me for right now.
So I got up to read the Bible. Promise Church is reading the Bible cover to cover this year; we’re following the reading plan found at Jentezen Franklin’s site. Here is a copy. There are One Year Bible’s, and a zillion through-the-bible-in-a-year reading plans. We’re doing this one because we’re joining Free Chapel on the 21-day fast again this January. I recommend you download the reading plan and use it as a checklist over the next 365 days. (Yes, I know this is a Leap Year, so February 29th you can use as a catch-up day if you miss a day in the next 6 or 8 weeks, okay?)
Today’s reading is Genesis chapters 1,2 and 3. At Christmas last week we were at family’s house for dinner and I was asked how chapter 2 comes before chapter 3 since it looks like chapter 2 says God created man, but then chapter 3 says God created man and woman, and it sort of contradicts itself in the way it’s laid out.
That’s an honest and healthy question. And very appropriate to ask at the beginning of the Book, since the answer will help set the stage for the rest of our Bible reading through the whole year.
Have you ever watched a movie that starts in the middle of the story, then goes back to the beginning to say *how* the story got up to that point? I think that’s what God does here. He starts by saying what He did, and then He goes back and reviews some specifics.
There are going to be plenty of times in our Bible reading when we have to step back a bit and look closely at what God is saying and how He’s saying it. Just like life. Sometimes we have to step back and take a big-picture look at things because let’s admit: individual things that happen can be pretty demotivating.
But seeing things from a higher place, we can look at one apparently bad situation in our life and remember that all things work together for the good of those who love God and are the called according to His purpose. Whew! Does that mean the fight that you had, the lay-off you went through, the repo, the foreclosure, the divorce, the substance abuse and recovery….God can use ALL of that to work together for good of YOU?
Yes.
So take Genesis 1,2 &3, read and then re-read it. Chew on it. Pray about it. Set yourself a pacing practice that allows the Lord to speak to your spirit as you spend time every single day in His Word! He will use it to edify, exhort, comfort, correct, guide, and equip you for successful life. I promise. Better yet: He promises!
