How many of you love to take tests? When I was in school, I used to almost have a panic attack each time I had to take a test. It wasn’t because I didn’t study or wasn’t prepared. I just always had test anxiety. That lasted all the way through college. After college, I accepted Jesus as my Savior and continued my studies with a Master’s Degree from Oral Roberts University. When I took those tests, I was calmer and was able to focus more because I always prayed before my tests. I recall our young son in kindergarten and his attitude towards testing. As I drove him to school one day, I asked him if he had studied his spelling words for the test that day since he had not asked me to call them out as usual. He calmly told me that he had not studied, but it would be okay because he planned to pray before the test, and Jesus knows his “abc’s and 1-2-3’s”. That’s a good thing to remember, isn’t it? I chided him, though and told him that God wants us to put effort into the work that he has given us to do and to always do our best. I’m not sure my lesson to him really had any effect on him since he got a perfect grade on the spelling test that he admitted he didn’t study for.

Sometimes as I ride next to my husband down the road, I get frustrated with the other drivers and will say things like, “That foolish person is going to kill someone if he isn’t more careful!” My husband reminds me to pray for his safety. And God reminds me that I need to do a self-test and check out my attitude.

No matter what circumstance I find myself in, I am carrying Jesus around in me and like a battery that needs to be checked occasionally to see if it’s fully charged, I need to check and make sure that I’m “in the faith” and not “of the world.” When I respond the same as others would with churlishness or selfishness, I know exactly where I am and that I am not passing the self-test. Time to reign myself in and get myself under the control of God again!

The good news is that once we have examined ourselves, we have the opportunity to take the test again and pass the second time around. Same test, same questions, same everything. But passing is possible the second time because my heart has changed and I have plugged back into the Lord and His view of the situation instead of my own.

Jesus is not ever going to leave me hanging, without hope and without knowing for sure that He is still working in me. That’s why the Word tells us to examine ourselves, to test ourselves and see whether what we are doing or how we are acting lines up with God’s Word. I don’t get nervous when God reminds me to do a self-check because I know He is reminding me of how much He loves me and how He wants me to become more and more like His Son by making the choices that are best for me and others. When Jesus returns, all of the testing will be over, but in the meantime, I have to examine myself daily, sometimes more than once a day and sometimes over and over again, to make sure that what I am doing and saying passes the test of representing Jesus to a world that needs to see Him and His love, not His judgment.

May all of your tests today be ones that show God’s mercy in your life, extended to others, knowing that as you pass each test, you are getting closer to God.