The Tested Genuineness of Faith

”In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 1:6-7)

Trials are part and parcel of life. They come in many forms and in varying degrees of weight - in need, in sickness, in unemployment, in the death of a loved one, in calamity, and many more to mention. In God’s perfect wisdom and grace, He puts us through seasons of trials with the end goal of spiritually developing us and the ultimate end goal of glorifying Himself. But the beautiful end God has planned for us does not mean that His means to achieve the end will be easy and effortless for us. So how can we believers endure through God’s means of grievous trials?

The apostle Peter was very clear when he exhorted the believers of his time about going through grievous trials: we can rejoice even though we suffer all kinds of trials, knowing that the proven genuineness of our faith - more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire - will result to the praise and glory of our Lord.

At the onset, it appears strange that we are exhorted to rejoice in trials - after all the words “rejoice” and “trials” seem more like contradictory words than complementary words. But as we understand why God works out trials in our lives, we will come to see the perfect harmony of these two words. Peter tells us that we can rejoice, even through grievous trials, because it results to the tested genuineness of our faith.

These difficult seasons of life serve to remind us of the complete dependence we must have on the Lord who keeps us, sustains us, and leads us. These trials have a way of taking our focus away from ourselves and our circumstances, and putting our focus solely on God. In such times, we see God working out our faith in ways that would simply not happen under easy circumstances. Therein we see that as God puts us in and carries us through the hard times, we are gifted with God’s assurance of two things: that our faith is genuine and that our faith is being deepened.

Dear believer, can anything be more precious than the assurance that your faith in God is genuine and that your faith is being deepened by God? No wonder Peter says that the proven genuineness of our faith in trials is worth more than purified gold which perishes. If perishable, purified, genuine gold is seen as of great value, then how much more an imperishable, purified, genuine faith? Surely, the value of genuine faith that endures to the end is incomparable to the value of genuine gold that perishes. Since our trials result to revealing and strengthening our genuine faith in God, then that must also result to the praise and glory of our God.