God's Methods For Testing Believers

Genesis 22:1-14

God never tempts us to sin since He wants us to make decisions that please and glorify Him, but God does test our faith and our trust in Him in order to grow in our faith.

Since God tests our faith, He may use various methods to help us to grow and become more faithful to Him.

In this message, let us examine a few methods God may use to test and try our faith.

What is a method God uses to test our faith?

1. He may ask us to give up someone or something important to us.

As in our text, God tested the faith of Abraham by telling him to go and sacrifice his son. God may ask you to give up something that is important to you to see if you are willing to do it.

Abraham did what God said and did not question God's motives which shows us Abraham truly trusted that God had a reason for asking him to sacrifice Isaac. When we trust God and we stop questioning His will or ways, we just like Abraham will pass the test and become stronger.

2. He may lead us down a difficult path.

God has never promised us that life would be easy once we accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Life will still be full of challenges.

Sometimes life is hard, we are perplexed on every side, but don't give up, trust in God.

If we will follow Him where He leads us we will never go astray and we will arrive where God wants us to be.

In Deuteronomy 8:2, the people spent 40 years in the wilderness, but those who followed God's lead ultimately went into the promised land. Will you follow God, even if the path is difficult?

3. He may ask us to go through a difficult situation.

Jesus was always in control of the situations of life during His earthly ministry.

One day Jesus was preaching to a large audience and it came time to feed them. In John 6:5-14, there were 5,000 to be fed and although Jesus knew what He would do, He asked Philip how these were to be fed?

While Philip thought, Andrew came and said that there was a lad there who had 5 barley loaves and 2 small fish. But the disciples were stressed over the situation, because the lad's lunch was physically not sufficient to feed this many people.

Notice when Jesus was consulted, He made the people sit down, took the lad's lunch, blessed it, fed the people, and afterwards 12 baskets of fragments were gathered remaining.

This should teach us that situations arise that may cause us concern, but when we allow the Lord to take control, the difficult situation can become a 'learning process' for us.

4. He may allow us to suffer for a while.

Paul is a great example of this for Paul spent over 75% of his ministry in jail.

In Acts 16:25-31, Paul and Silas were not out of fellowship with God, but God allowed them to be imprisoned nonetheless.

An earthquake happened and the guard, thinking the prisoners had escaped, was prepared to kill himself. Paul and Silas revealed that no one had escaped and the guard came, pulled them out, fell before them, then asked about the way of salvation. That day not only was that man saved, but as we know this was the start of the Philippian church.

When God allows you to suffer, do not lose faith, understand He is allowing it for a reason. The reason Paul and Silas were made to suffer was so that the man and his family would be saved.

Conclusion: As you see, God has many methods that He might use to test your faith. All you need to do is trust in Him and follow His lead. The outcome of all testing is growth in our faith and possibly the greater opportunity to serve the Lord. Will you allow God's testing to help you grow?