October 2

For You, O God, have tested us; You have refined us like silver. — Ps 66:10 BSB

The Lord’s ways with His people in the wilderness have this purpose—to test them and reveal what is in their hearts. Has the Lord placed His life in your soul? Has He touched your conscience? Has He started a work of grace in your heart? If so, throughout your journey in this wilderness, situations will arise to prove the reality of this work within you.

Temptations will come, and when they do, they will reveal whether you have the fear of God in your heart to resist, or if you fall under the weight of temptation. And if you do fall, whether you can be restored. If you are truly alive in Christ, the Lord will continue to bring event after event, situation after situation, each one proving whether or not the fear of God truly resides in your soul. If that fear of God is not there, you will inevitably fall away. Satan is stronger than everyone except God’s own people; sin will conquer and destroy everyone except those whose sins are forgiven through the blood of Christ’s atoning sacrifice; and the world will eventually overcome everyone who does not have the faith of God’s elect, which is the only way to overcome the world. The Lord, through His mysterious ways (and how mysterious they are!), proves the reality of grace in every heart where He has begun His work, while also exposing the hypocrisy of those who only have the appearance of life but are spiritually dead before God.