God Tests the Heart

What is the hardest test you’ve ever taken?  The hardest tests I remember taking were in a college class called History of the Restoration Movement.  The tests always involved lots of facts, dates, and more information than I could ever fit into my brain at one time.  Nobody likes taking a test.  Taking a test requires lots of study and hard work.  Taking a test is nerve wracking.  As hard and time consuming test taking is, they are necessary in order to display whether we genuinely have learned whatever information we were expected to put in our mind.  Without taking a test there is no way of knowing whether we understand and grasp the information we have been taught.  When it comes down to it, test taking proves or disproves what we know.

Just as a teacher tests our minds in order to prove what we know, God TESTS our heart in order to PROVE who the REAL us is!  Proverbs 17:3 says, “the crucible is for silver, the furnace is for gold, and the Lord tests hearts.”  The intense heat of a crucible or a furnace is applied to precious metals in order to burn away and eliminate any impurities, anything that is NOT silver or gold.  God takes the human heart through a similar process to eliminate what is not intended to be there and see if the love and obedience He designed to be there genuinely exists there.  When it comes down to it, testing is God’s way of authenticating who we are.  How and why does God test our heart?

READ:  Deuteronomy 8:1-20

God tests our heart by bringing HUMBLING circumstances into our life (Deut. 8:2-3) – God applied “heat” to the lives of the people of Israel by leading them away from their prosperity in Egypt and leaving them hungry in the wilderness.  Their “hunger” was a humbling circumstance intended to expose the reality of their dependence, or lack of dependence, on God.  The Israelites were not to depend on bread, but rather the word of God!  God leads us into humbling times of sadness, disappointment, struggle, trial, frustration, sickness, and even persecution for the purpose of seeing whether our belief in and our dependence on Him is real.  We pass the test if we go through these times without grumbling, complaining, or blaming God, and instead patiently loving, trusting, depending, and remaining obedient to Him.

God tests our heart by DISCIPLINING us (Deut. 8:5) – Disciplining my children is never fun.  Whether I apply discipline through training or instruction or enforce consequences or punishment, disciple is painful.  And yet, discipline is for my children’s good.  Discipline involves creating undesirable circumstances in order to discourage them from doing something foolish or wrong.  Just like I discipline my children, God disciplines us!  God applies the “heat” of discipline in our lives in order to give us the opportunity to eliminate foolishness and sin from our hearts.  Discipline is a gracious and merciful effort on God’s part to inspire repentance and change.

God tests our heart so that we REMEMBER and not FORGET His provision (Deut. 8:2, 11, *14, 18-19) – When is it most easy to forget that God is all we ever really need to be satisfied?  When our lives are easy, comfortable, healthy, and enjoyable.  Humbling circumstances and discipline provide important opportunities for us to “remember” God and not “forget” Him.  Whether we are rich or poor, healthy or sick, happy or sad, loved or lonely, we must remember that with God in our lives, we have all we need in life to be satisfied.  God allows these opportunities sometimes (and for many, often) in order to remind us that HE is all we should ever really want or need!  Difficult circumstances should not push us further away from God, but closer to Him.

CONCLUSION
Psalm 26:2 says, “prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and my mind.”   This is a dangerous prayer but a necessary prayer.  We must be willing to go through times of testing in order for our love and obedience for God to be proved genuine.  It is through testing that not only does God proves the genuineness of our heart for Him, but we get to see the genuineness of our own heart.  Be ready, in His time and in His way, God will test our heart to prove that our love and obedience toward Him is real.  This is one test we do not want to fail!