A Tried People
You will never get to the place in your Christian experience where you will be above temptation and trial. Jesus was tempted of the devil. He was a "man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.'' We shall always be subject to temptation, but we can be more than conquerors through Him that loved us.
"God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it" (1 Cor. 10:13).
You will be tempted and tried. Real Bible salvation will not always keep you on the mountaintop of feeling. Some may wonder why they cannot always feel the blessing. That is not according to God's Word, because the Bride of Christ is in her tribulation today, and the Word says, "The just shall live by faith" (Heb. 10:38).
The tribulation of the world is coming after the Bride is taken away, but the tribulation of the saints of God is in their lives today. Many times you wonder why you shed tears and go through heart sufferings, your spirit being oppressed. God says, "Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all" (Psa. 34:19).
His Word declares that afflictions shall come to the child of God. He wants a people tested and tried, proved and made pure through suffering, through temptation and tribulation. He says, "I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction" (Isa. 48:10).
We are living in the most awful age of the world. There never was a time with such privileges and opportunities; and yet there never was a time when the onslaughts of Satan were so great as today. You may not understand why it is you have times of tests and trials so strange. But we read, "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you" (1 Peter 4:12).
God would never have a perfect people if He did not try them. He must have a people "purified, and made white, and tried." It is easy when everything is coming our way and we feel the glory and the smile of heaven, but that is not what makes a tried-out people. We must endure hardness, walk by faith, and penetrate right through to the throne of God by faith in Him.
We are going through the humiliation with Jesus Christ. But oh, to think that some day we shall rise with Him, and these vile bodies shall put on incorruption! We shall be like unto His glorious body. Some day the perfection of beauty will be seen on God's children, when "we shall see Him as He is."
He may lay you low; He will put you in the dust. But we read in the Word, “Every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted" (Luke 18:14). We have found God's Word to be true. Oh, that we might get our hearts in an attitude before God to say, "I surrender; I lay my life at the foot of the Cross, an empty vessel. Do what You will with me, but I will stand; I will be obedient to the 'heavenly vision!' "
It means much to walk this way alone, but we must be faithful to God. God is striving to get His people ready to meet Him in the air. We must be tried and purified until the coming of the Lord.
– The Apostolic Faith Church