SN 2022 April 9: What can I allow to separate me from the Love of God? My Christianity (Faith), Quality Assured & Tested.

SN – 9 April 2022

Quality Assurance & Testing

When there is need to certify that the product or project can indeed perform as designed…

… and is conforming to the expectations of the stakeholders

… while exploring the product or process to find abnormalities and defects

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The product would be put through an appropriate quality assurance and testing process…

…. that may involve vigorous testing under different environments that it is designed to encounter with success.

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Unfortunately for some of us, we were brought into Christianity being promised a cruise ship experience...

… but quickly find out that it is a battleship rather than a cruise ship!!

… while caught between some unexpected crossfire 

… and are ignorantly & foolishly surprised why the devil doesn’t seem to want to keep to his lane!!

>> TUHESHIMIANE!!

… and hence encounter suffering, or being in exile or perishing for lack of knowledge and understanding…Hosea 4:6, Isaiah 5:13

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Would I be able to pass the quality assurance and testing process as a Christian?

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What is the thing, person or circumstance that I can allow to separate me from God?

…What is my price to be sold out?

… What is the stress point before I break?

… What would make me give up on God?

Welcome to today’s – Maana for Thought…

Be blessed…

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When God wants to show one off as a quality product!!

e.g. declaring one blameless, upright, fearing God, shunning evil and holding fast to integrity (faithful)

… And agrees for one to be taken for a ‘test drive’,

… for one to be considered by Satan

… unfortunately test drives are for testing extreme capability and not for pampering!!

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Job (NKJV)

1:8 – Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?”

1:9 –  So Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for nothing?

1:11 –  But now, stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face!”

1:12 –  And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.

2:3 –  Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil? And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause.”

2:4 –  So Satan answered the LORD and said, “Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life.

2:5 –  But stretch out Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse You to Your face!”

2:6 –  And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life.”

2:9 –  Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!”

2:10 –  But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

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Wanting the crown, but without the cross!!

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As a juvenile Christian…

– One may start with wanting the crown but without going through the cross…

But as one matures as a Christian…

– One gets to understand that one has to – go through the cross to get to the crown

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The quality assurance and testing process is apparently the cross!?!

– A sifting process

– A searching of the heart, a testing of the mind

… commonly of love – for God and man

… to see if one is genuine in their faith…

…. and can indeed hold fast to their integrity (not break apart or be compromised)

… so that one can indeed be perfected, established, strengthened, and settled (improved to the required standard of perfection)

… or curse God and die! (disintegrate, break apart, release holding on to God…and perish!!)

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For…

Jeremiah 17:9-10 (NKJV)

– “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?

– I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings.

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>> We are known by our fruit … Matthew 7:20

… especially the fruit (of the Spirit ) of love, from the True Vine… John 13:35, John 15

… and the quality of our fruit is also assessed…

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>> 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 (NKJV)

– For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

– Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw,

– each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is.

– If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward.

– If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

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The test may indeed be..

… will I follow Christ to the end, be a true disciple?

– Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me…. Matthew 16:24

…. and anyone who does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me and cannot be my disciple…Matthew 10:38, Luke 14:27

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…what or who (.. the person, condition or circumstance) can make me give up on God?

… what or who can separate me from Christ ( to curse God and die)?

Romans 3

35 – Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? 

Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

38 –  For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,

39 –  nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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All in all 

… in the battleship of Christianity

>> There is indeed an accuser of the brethren… Revelation 12:10

… whom we should not be ignorant of his devices, so that he does not outwit us… 2 Corinthians 2:11

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Zechariah 3:1 (NIV)

– Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him..

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Luke 22:31-32 (NKJV)

– And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat.

– But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.”

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Indeed,  we can hold on to certain promises…

>> Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Christ who loves us…Romans 8:37

As

>> No temptation has overtaken us except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that we may be able to bear it….1 Corinthians 10:13

>> And we can overcome the adversary by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony, and not loving our lives to the death… Revelations 12:11

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Prayer

>> Psalm 139:23-24

– Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties;

– And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.

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>> 1 Peter 5:8-11 (NKJV)

– Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

– Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.

– But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.

– To Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen

And may God give me the grace…

>>To fight the good fight, finish the race and keep the faith through it all so as to receive the crown of righteousness … 2 Timothy 4:7-8 

>> With the correct attitude and perspective so as  to receive the crown of life >> James 1

When I can indeed consider it pure joy when I encounter trials of many kinds…

…knowing that the testing of my faith develops perseverance

… and that I should allow perseverance (through God’s wisdom) to finish its work in me

… making me mature and complete and not lacking anything (quality assured and tested)

12 – Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him.

AMEN!!