Pass or Fail?

Yesterday, Bishop Woods preached Can Somebody Help Me Get it Together? Bishop thoroughly expressed that we will be tested, the question becomes who can help us to pass the test? He went on to reveal that we pass the test by acknowledging and accepting the Holy Ghost, as our comforter and as the one who will rest in our situation in our weakness.

Interestingly, I received a list serve message yesterday titled God's Tests. This list serve went on to explain how God puts forth the test to make us and mold us so that we are fit for His purpose. Our tests are not pleasant and are sometimes painful, but are meant to help us fulfill the calling on our lives. The writer used Saul and David as examples stating that Saul failed God's test, but David passed. David may not have always understood what God was doing or why God was doing things the way He was doing it, but David learned to accept God's testing, and to understand that every betrayal, battle, hardship, and hurt were meant to usher him into the position that God, through Samuel, had anointed him to fulfill. David had to go through everything that he went through in order to be the King that God purposed for him to be.

So what's the lesson today? Change your perspective! Stop looking at the challenges in your life as God has forsaken you or that He doesn't love you. Stop focusing on the trial or the tribulation and ask God for the lesson. Stop allowing the enemy to derail you. You need God's testing to help you learn what you don't already know on your own. God gives you tests to make you better, smarter, faster and fit for His use. God gives you the test to make you wiser.

Do you keep experiencing hurt at the hands of others? Change your perspective, God is teaching you to love His people. Are you experiencing financial hardship? Pass this test! God is teaching you to rely solely on Him as your source. He knows what you have need of before you even ask or think. You are His child, why would He leave you destitute? There's a lesson in it for you to accept. I've come to understand that sometimes financial problems that leave you needing other people are lessons from God that you must rely upon the system that He established. God said, give and it shall be given unto you, good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over shall "men" give into your bosom. Learn the lesson that you cannot dictate to God how He is going to bless you. Stop being independent.

Are you going through family crisis over and over? God is teaching you to pray. Prayer changes things--not your intellect--not how much you think and worry about your family member. God knows the heart and only He can put a chain of events in place that will move us into the place we need to be to hear from Him. To us that may be a dry and desolate place, but for God that is the place where He can commune with us.

Are you experiencing health problems? God wants you to learn that He took stripes for your healing. Will you believe that He can and will heal? Will you believe His report? Will you trust that God may just be giving you a thorn in your flesh to keep you in a humble place where you can remember to be a blessing to others?

Today remember God's ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts as far as the heavens are above the earth are just as far as His thoughts are above our thoughts. He knows what you need to nudge you in the direction of your purpose. Yield to His will and the Holy Ghost will help you to pass.