A New Creature. . . an Apostolic Pentecostal blog

In an earlier writing I explored the difference between a trial and a test. . .The differences between the two are in the attitude and thereby the perception of the one undergoing the experience. There is indeed a difference between being tempted and being tested. A test is a measuring device, like a ruler or weight scales. You can be tested by someone else or you can and should test yourself. A test births an increase in knowledge. Tests can be constructed from virtually any raw material. They are not limited to any set form. Any life event can be viewed as a test, if you learn something about your self from it. Every test is valuable in that there is always value in gaining knowledge about yourself. While a test is most often independent of you, think of a hurricane or the present economic crisis, millions of people are being tested at once by single causative events. A temptation on the other hand is intimately bound to you, for indeed temptation is internal. It arises from...

One night I was on a long drive home from Peoria, Illinois when my wife called. She told me of the wonderful church service that night and how things went. She said that a good friend was having some complications from his surgery to correct complications from another surgery several weeks ago and that his wife was requesting prayer for him. After Jackie hung up and I was again alone in the quiet of the car with the long miles stretching ahead of me, I began to pray for my friend, but then I stopped and I wasn't sure of just what to pray. . . . I have great great respect for my friend. He and I came to Life Tabernacle at roughly the same time. He is much younger than I, just starting his family, but still we've grown together in our faith in many ways. I know that he is capable of huge things in the kingdom of God and while I want God to spare him an attack, a trial from the evil one, but then again I don't want him to miss a blessing by not enduring a test from God. . . ...