February 2, 2022
“I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; and you have persevered and have patience...” Revelation 2:2-3a
Early in His letter to the church at Ephesus, Jesus mentioned patience twice. It is a sad fact that many discouragements are directed at God’s people from “those who are evil.” He especially commends the quality of patience, as it is essential to perseverance and endurance. Jesus knows the difficulty of persevering. He patiently endured the worst possible treatment from fellow humans, having left His divinity behind to enter this world as fully human.
“You have tested those who say they are apostles and are not…” How are we to test?
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard is coming, and is now already in the world. 1 John 4:1-3
It is crucial to understand that the motivation behind what people say and do is the spirit with which they are in fellowship. God loves all people, and He desires that they be quickened by His Spirit. But we know that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against….spiritual hosts of wickedness…” (Ephesians 6:12) This testing of the spirits applies to our own plan making, thoughts, and actions. I will often find influences that are not from God at work in my life. As He patiently guides, I must stay conscious of the fact that the process of sanctification is a lifelong experience. May we be so devoted to the purity of the gospel message as we go forth each day, that we will readily recognize a wrong, antichristian spirit at work. If the desire of our hearts is to please the Lord, He will move heaven and earth to aid us so that we will steadily be inclined toward obedience to His will. Eventually, this inclination becomes as natural as breathing. Jesus, as a man like us, learned the Scriptures and used them successfully as a weapon of defense against disobeying His Father. In human flesh, He persevered with patient endurance and lived a sinless life.
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Romans 8:2-4