Mastery of the Subject

Very often, a believer will fail a test of God and hesitate in getting back up. The believer was perhaps living a life of victory, clean before God and enjoying the resources of Christ’s Life, when a temptation of some sort hit and suddenly took them down. They thought they were strong; they thought they could stand up to it and resist. They had been walking in the Spirit that morning; by the evening, however, they are cast down and find themselves once again in the dregs of a besetting sin. Because they loathe themselves to such a degree, they have a great reluctance to be recovered before God. This is because they feel their Christianity is just not “working” and therefore any continuation of it is futile.

These children, in their depression, must be encouraged with the truth of all-loving, all-wise Father who allows certain things to happen for the furtherance of their good. This is not to say that God condones or causes sinful acts. We know from scripture that God will allow the tempter of souls to strike at the hearts of His children – and always for a specific purpose. The Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness specifically to be tested by Satan; Jesus foretold of Peter’s allowance to be sifted by request of Satan; Satan asked to destroy all which righteous Job held in possession, and God granted it. If the enemy had asked to sift someone like Peter (who was strong in the faith, but weak in the flesh), the enemy will also ask to sift someone like you and me. And God may allow it in time. When He permits the enemy to strike, a strong presentation to engage in evil will suddenly come to your mind. It will come as a rebellion against the light God has already given you on the matter. Previously, you could hold your ground against it and resist it with power – but suddenly it’s coming in like a tsunami and you’re not ready. Your mind is weak; the flesh is howling for release; the voice of your conscience is quickly fading.

When you fail God, you fail against the will of your inner man. If you could push a button to stop the temptation, you would do it in a heartbeat. You don’t want to sin, but in those dire moments you feel yourself helpless, overpowered and flesh-dominated. It is never the Lord’s will that we fail during these times of testing, but if we are going to fail, He already knew it and still permitted our testing. It is hard for us to wrap our minds around this concept because we are so used to processing information in patterns of human logic. It’s difficult for us to compute God allowing something to happen to us knowing it will cause us to sin. Didn’t God already know Peter would deny the Christ, yet allowed the ordeal to happen all the same? Yes. The Lord is not an earthly teacher. An earthly teacher, when she gives a test, does not know her pupils’ results until after the test is taken. But God knows the results beforehand, and still administers the test in order to teach His children the subject matter in a much more effective way.

The reason He allows such tests is to show us that only Christ can pass them. When we fail a test, it is because we took the test ourselves. The great end of all God’s testing in allowing the devil to sift us is to show that only Christ can pass. When we take a test and fail, our eyes are usually blind to the fact that we took the test ourselves. There is a reluctance to look up to God because of our sense of hopelessness. A defeatist mindset encompasses us and we begin to see ourselves as worthless subjects. Ah – but this is precisely the reason this Teacher of teachers gave us the test! To foster within us this very understanding of our inability to master the subject matter. An earthly teacher introduces the subject matter to her students for them to display it comprehensibly on the test; God, in contrast, uses the test’s incomprehensibility to demonstrate the subject matter to His children. And the subject matter is the grace of Jesus Christ.

The problem is when the failed student stays down when God would have him get up and continue on. God wills that after each test-failure we would approach the blood of Christ through confession of our failure and be restored. He calls us to look into His Word to see where we had gone astray. In this regard the Word of God is like a mirror which sits upon a wash-basin filled with Christ’s blood. Our loving Father’s only requirement for His failing child? Look, confess, and wash. That is His remedial program. When you fail any test, you return to this basin. The more you come to it, the more you will be transformed with the wisdom which comes from above.

So, my dear reader, never stay down after you flunk a test in God’s school. Pick yourself up after you fall and go to the mirror of God’s Word and wash in the fountain of Christ’s blood. There was a purpose God allowed the enemy to tempt your heart and wound your soul. Perhaps you had been growing too proud; perhaps you were beginning to leave your first love; perhaps you had forgotten how God had cleansed you from your former sins. Whatever the case was, do not stay down. Come up and confess. Get cleaned up! The subject matter you were unprepared for was the employment of the grace of Jesus Christ. The test’s purpose – as with every one of God’s tests – is to teach you that you cannot pass any of them but for the grace of the life of Jesus in you.

May the mastery of this subject be a consuming passion in our daily life.

Brother Paul