You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.   Deuteronomy 6:16 ESV

Bring the full tenth into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.   Malachi 3:10 ESV

Beloved do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.  1 John 4:1 ESV

Now as you read the scripture passages for today, they may seem to be somewhat contradictory, but the bible does not contradict itself. So let’s look at these verses individually. The bible clearly tells us that we are not to put our God to the test in Deuteronomy. Then again in Matthew, Jesus refers to that scripture when he is being tempted by Satan in the wilderness.  In Matthew 4:5-7, the devil is trying to get Satan to throw himself from the pinnacle of the temple. Satan, being the crafty fellow that he is, even quoted scripture from Psalm 91 telling Jesus that God would command His angels concerning Jesus and not let him strike his foot on a stone.  Jesus responded by saying, “Again, it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”   So, one could derive from that, that we should not jump from a skyscraper and test God to see if He will catch us.

Our scripture from Deuteronomy is referring to the passage in Exodus 17:2. As you may recall, the Israelites took 40 years to complete a 14 day trip. This was because of their grumbling, fault finding, and turning away from God. In Exodus 17:2, they are whining to Moses about how thirsty they are.  They tell him that he brought them into the wilderness to die when they could be back in Egypt with everything they needed. They would still be slaves and being mistreated mind you, but they would have plenty of water.  The Israelites tested God’s patience and mercy and love many times.  They lived in a pattern of praising and worshiping God, being lured into idol worship, being captured and placed into bondage by their enemies, repenting, being freed by God and blessed by Him and starting that pattern all over again. It was a vicious cycle. Does that sound familiar?  That describes the first 40 years of my life.  I got off that roller coaster on August 22, 2010 and let me tell you, I am so glad I did.  It will wear you down.  Don’t test God’s patience, you may be very sorry you did.

In Malachi 3:10 the Lord tells us to test Him and see if He won’t pour out blessings beyond measure.  God is good.  Just the other day, our scripture passage was Isaiah 32:17 which tells us that the effect of righteousness will be peace and the result of righteousness will be quietness and trust forever.  God promises us that if we keep His commands and love Him with our heart, soul, and mind, that He will take good care of us.  When we draw near to God and He calls us to salvation, however, it’s not that we live that way to put Him to the test. At that point, we know He is faithful, we don’t have to test Him. But, when you love God with all your heart, you want to live in a way that pleases Him. You want to put the pleasures of the flesh behind you and live for the Lord.

Now in our last scripture passage from 1 John, we are told to test every spirit. We spoke yesterday about how the devil masquerades as an angel of light.  We must be very careful, the devil is good at making what’s wrong look okay.  The devil will try to convince you that sin is not really sin.  He will try to convince you that God won’t care. I have even allowed the devil to convince me that my sin would be overlooked by God as long as I stayed in church.  Yeah, I know, that’s crazy talk there. But, I was blinded by my fleshly desires.  The devil offered just what I thought I wanted and convinced me that God was offering that.  I am reminded of this very thing when I read the story of David and Saul in the cave.  This story is in 1 Samuel chapter 24. Saul has been pursuing David in order to kill him. David had the perfect opportunity to kill Saul in that cave, but he didn’t. Why? Because he was in close enough relationship with God to know that this was not what God wanted. David’s men were egging him on telling him that God had placed his enemy into his hands and that this was God’s will for him to kill him. But, David knew better.

Do you know better? Are you testing God’s patience with your whining and never being satisfied with what you have?  Are you overlooking the blessings that He has given you to try and get more? Are you faithful with what you have been given? Are you trusting God or testing? If you are testing God, you are on a slippery slope my friend. I warn you to turn to God and trust in Him. Praise Him and show appreciation for what He has given you and allow Him to bless you even more.

I don’t know about you, but when I was in school the teachers gave the test.  They taught us the right way to do things and then they tested us to be sure that we understood. God should be the one giving the test, not us. We don’t know enough about the material anyway. We should be drawing near to Him, studying His Word and learning daily from Him. Allow Him to do the testing and remember, it’s an open book test. Read your Bible and pray and talk to Him so that you are sure to pass.

Have a great day!