The Lord Your God is Testing You
“The Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul” (Deut. 13:3). The most important question is how do I respond to the tests that the Lord sends? If I fail the test, then it makes no difference how fervently I may claim to love the Lord. It makes no difference how deeply I might feel that I love the Lord with all my heart. When I fail the test, God knows that this failure shows I really do not love Him.
What was the test God gave? Read the rest of the chapter, and you will see it involved false teachers and religious leaders who tried to keep men from obeying God. The test is simple. Does my love cause me to obey the Lord or to ignore what He says? “Christians” in America are failing the test!
“Christendom” in our land struggles how to deal with homosexuality. A quick Google search will reveal how many denominations are changing their teachings. Within the last year, the United Methodist Church has a major doctrinal shift and two distinct Methodist groups now exist. Others who have ordained homosexuals as church leaders included the Evangelical Lutheran Church (since 2010), the Presbyterian Church USA (since 2012), the Episcopal Church, the Disciples of Christ, the Reformed Church in America, the Mennonite Church in the USA (2013) and a host of others in our land are struggling in their conventions about what they should teach.
Internationally, the same is true. Ordination of homosexuals is practiced in the Anglican Church of Canada (since 2016); The Anglican Church in New Zealand; the Anglican churches in South Africa, Brazil, Wales, Ireland and South India. The same is true of the Reformed churches in Switzerland; the Protestant Church in the Netherlands; the Church of Sweden; The Danish National Church; the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland; the Church of Iceland and scores of others.
Homosexuality is just one aspect of the fact that mankind, while claiming to deeply love the Lord, has failed God’s testing of their love. The very basis of religious division and denominations is when we are ignoring what God says about a matter and then failing the test. Our world has failed the test of how to worship, baptism, the Lord’s supper, the role of women in the public assemblies and most important of all in teaching what one must do to be saved.
Let me appeal to every member of the Lord’s church. Read Deuteronomy 13, and see that those who are advocating changes in His church are failing the test. If we truly love the Lord, we will realize that God’s tests will confront us to allow us to visually see if our understanding of it means to know the depth of our love for Him. Pray about these matters.