In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:6–7, ESV)
Are you like me in that you have, at some point in your golfing life, made a swing change? You either saw an article that made sense or saw a player who was playing great and attributed their great play to a mechanical advantage that you had to have.
So, you start practicing this swing change and get to where it feels pretty solid on the range. Then what? You must take it out on the course and then into competition to test it out and make sure it works.
Sometimes it does, but sometimes you get the new swing change out into some pressure, and it doesn’t work, and things start to fall apart. Why? Because we don’t trust our swing.
We question whether we’ve done enough work to make the new swing unconsciously repeatable. We revert almost immediately back to what feels comfortable and has worked in the past to get through the round and not embarrass ourselves with a terrible score.
Then maybe we re-evaluate how committed we are to this new swing change and either work harder on it or discard it and go back to what worked for us in the past.
As I was having a discussion with a LINKS fellowship this morning, it struck me: Isn’t that what we do with our faith a lot of the time, too? We say that we love Jesus and we are going to trust God and walk more closely with him, but then, when trials and difficulties of different kinds come our way, we say, “Where’s God now?” We walk away from him and trust our own ways and go back to what is comfortable. I know I have.
It’s important to make sure that we understand that when we walk with Christ and follow God’s call, trials and tribulations are going to come our way.
If we don’t prepare to trust in God, we will turn away from him when life gets difficult and God tests our faith. We must keep growing in our faith through study, prayer, fellowship with other believers, and trusting in God when the smaller trials come so that we are prepared when the major trials come into our lives.
The passage for today says that “the genuineness of our faith” will be tested. If our faith in God isn’t genuine, is it really faith? The two verses that follow today’s passage say this:
Though you have not seen him (Jesus), you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:8–9)
Let’s trust and obey, LINKS players. Let’s have God make the OUTCOME of our FAITH salvation for our souls. Trust God and believe in Jesus Christ!
GIVE ’EM HEAVEN TODAY, LINKS PLAYERS!!
Prayer: Lord, help us to prepare ourselves and others for the trials and tribulations that we know you are going to bring our way to test our faith. Help us to put our trust in YOU!