Trials and temptations (testing) are common passages of life. God tested Abraham (Gn. 22:1), the Hebrew people as they journeyed towards Canaan (Exo. 15:25, 16:4, 20:20, Deut. 8:2, 16, 9:22). The propets and the dreamer of dreams is a means of testing the people (Deut. 13:3). The Canaanites left in the land after Israel’s entry was a means of gtesting the people (Judges 2:22, 3:1-4). The people tested God in a manifest departure from His will as recorded in Deuteronomy 6:16 over and over (Exo. 17:2, ). Numbers 14:22 reports that there were ten occasions of the descendants of Jacob putting God to the test. It seems a bit Satanic to request a miracle to prove that anything (see the testing of Jesus in Matthew 4). The cross, all by itself, is the evidence of God’s plan and ongoing and complete care for humanity, affirming that God, having done that amazing thing for us, assures us of all his other gracious provisions, and therefore neither He nor we needs any evidence.

God, who knows the hearts of all men, gives the Holy Spirit to those who trust their eternal destiny and the removal of their debts to God’s Son. We have no right and no ability to investigate the progress of a person’s development as child of God. We owe others nothing but to love – care for – them. The giving of the Holy Spirit is final. It is a down-payment for what is to come, namely our glorification. God commits himself to finish what he started. We believers are not exposed to what men have to say about us when we step away from the crowd to believe what God has done. God speaks with authority: that person is Mine. All the king’s horses and men cannot undo that eternal choice. God needs no evidence and does not ask us to go around asking people to show them our faith.

Consider that God is able to keep the thing we have – at His instigation (Philippians 4:13) entrusted to him, from now until the day of Christ’s appearing. You may have a terrorist for pastor/bishop, someone who stirs up a poison pot of fear that the saved are switchcing back and forth from the kingdom of darkness to the the kingdom of light. This pastoral or laity attitude comes from sin-tracking ministry, often not their own, evidently based on the levitical system, not the cross.

We have no reason, in the light of the Holy Spirit’s presence and mission, to pray like David. God knows us and we know him. We do not need anyone urging us “Get to know the Lord”.

​Prove me, O LORD, and try me; test my heart and my mind.

Ps. 26:2 (ESV2011)