Q1. Testing Our Faith

[Pastor Ralph]

Q1. What effect does Satan want trials to have in our life? What effect does God want them to have? The effect really depends upon how we respond to the trial. Have you ever been through a trial that strengthens and invigorates you at the end? Have any of your trials inspired others or have you been inspired by another's trial?

[heatherdills]

The effect Satan wants trials to have in our life is to destroy our faith in God and in ourselves. God wantS them to have a positive and strengthening effect on our faith. The effect really depends upon how we respond to the trial. I have been through a trial that strengthened/invigorated me at the end although it took hindsight to really appreciate it. I am not aware of any trials that inspired others, but I have been inspired by others trials.

[Rosemaryfb]

Q1 a: Satan, being a deceiver and usurper, would concoct a trial to lead away from God and would make easy a path of self-reliance, of faith in myself, of hope in myself...

Q1. b. God is my refuge and strength, my ever-present help. He would have me run to Him, cry out to Him for protection.... even when I totally brought the trouble on myself with my own folly.

Q1.c. Yes. I was laid off work and it seems like I wrestled constantly with the temptation to wallow in depression or become anxious. Struggling not to absorb the lay-off as a reflection of my own worth.... However, invigorating moments were praying and Bible Study time each morning, and with sharing with others, and offering to pray for them.

Q1.d. Yes. The God who spared Isaac, the God who parted the Red Sea, the God who sent Jesus.... He also sends ministering servants in my hours of need. He provides me opportunities to share with others of His hand at work. I attend church with a bunch of sinners. I go to small-group with a bunch of sinners. We study God's Word together and share of parenting trials, marriage trials, doubts , victories, fears, triumphs. We also mess up and hurt one another occassionally. I have been sovereignly reminded to "forgive" and my own brokedness revealed through the trial -- whether in the sharing with others, or listening as they share share.

[ccs]

What effect does Satan want trials to have in our life?

He wants us to be defeated, depressed and with a negative attitude.

What effect does God want them to have?

God wants our trials to strengthen us and to bring us closer to Him also, as to help us grow in the Fruit of the Spirit so we are able to show His glory, His character, and his love through our trails.

The effect really depends upon how we respond to the trial. Have you ever been through a trial that strengthens and invigorates you at the end?

Yes, of course . . . you can either turn bitter or better, what doesn

[Jen]

What effect does Satan want trials to have on our life? What effect does God want them to have? The effect really depends on how we respond to the trial. Have you ever been through a trial that strengthens and invigorates you at the end? Have any of your trials inspired others or have you been inspired by anothers trials?

Satan wants our trials to humiliate and destroy us and our witness and to discredit God.

God wants us to come out of a trial more refined like gold and He wants to be glorified in our lives.

I have been through some trials that have greatly deepened my faith. It has depended on my attitude some times. And it is easier to see in hindsight. But we live by faith and not by sight.

I am aware of one person who wanted to become (and did) a "babe in Christ" like me through some trials I was going through when I came to know the Lord. I hope there are many more.

There are many who have inspired me.

God Bless!

Jen

Numbers 6:24-26

[Helenmm]

Satan comes to kill, steal and destroy and is the father of lies. He wants to destroy us, especially our faith. This would kill our spirit. He would rob us of life and Life because He is jealous of our sonship of God.

God, on the other hand, wants us to have Life, and to have it more abundantly, so he uses any trial for good in the lives of the faithful. "All things work together for good to those who are called....." In other words, going through a trial with God only makes us stronger, and as we see how God deals with it, our faith develops and becomes a tree planted by the water side, growing in strength, even though it was as small as a mustard seed. With that faith prospering, everything else prospers too. Who would go any other way than God's way?

Even when I forgot for several years that I was a Christian, and was a long way from God, I went through a terrible trial, and guess what! It was the old Bible verses I had learned that made sense to me and saw me through. The verse that says "All things work together for good to those who are called according to God's purpose". Even in that state, the Biblical verse was great strength to me. It was wisdom outside of me. It was part of my foundations that could not be moved!

Doing things in spite of sickness has seemed to inspire others.

Seeing women struggling with terrible marriages with men who are not christian, and in fact are very negative about the faith, has been an incredible eyeopener to me. I have so much respect for such women.

[PressThrough]

Q1. What effect does Satan want trials to have in our life? What effect does God want them to have? The effect really depends upon how we respond to the trial. Have you ever been through a trial that strengthens and invigorates you at the end? Have any of your trials inspired others or have you been inspired by another's trial?

satan would have us stressed out unto death

God would have us full of Joy unto life

Have you ever been through a trial that strengthens and invigorates you at the end? Yes, although some of the trials are not very joyous at the time, they all are strengthening sooner or later

Have any of your trials inspired others or have you been inspired by another's trial? Yes

[Helen Spaulding]

Q1. What effect does Satan want trials to have in our life? What effect does God want them to have? The effect really depends upon how we respond to the trial. Have you ever been through a trial that strengthens and invigorates you at the end? Have any of your trials inspired others or have you been inspired by another's trial?

Satan wants us to think God has given up on us and the trials prove it! Then he can encourage us to think he will give us power and there'll be no more probelms!

God wants us to realize that He is with us in trials, that the trials (if we trust Him and follow His guidance) are to help us to grow in understanding and to be more able to be used by Him.

Yes, but it does take hindsight to understand! I don't know if my trials have inspired others, however my work on writing my book was used by God to inspire others.

I have been inspired by others' trials. Praise His Name!

[Sgt_Z_Squad]

1a.) What effect does Satan want trials to have in our life?

1a.) The Life Application Study Bible has a great section on Satan's Plan in the book of Genesis. The 5 D's:

a.) Doubt - Makes you question God's Word and His goodness.

b.) Discouragement - Makes you look at your problems rather than at God.

c.) Diversion - Makes the wrong things seem attractive so that you will want them more than the right things.

d.) Defeat - Makes you feel like a failure so that you don't even try.

e.) Delay - Makes you put off doing something so that it never gets done.

1b.)  What effect does God want them to have?

1b.) The 5 E's:

a.) Edify - To strengthen our faith in His Word and His Truth.

b.) Encouragement - To step out of the box to bring Glory to God.

c.) E - illuminate the good and to show the evil.

c.) Elation - to know the joy of His power thrugh His Son.

e.) Enthusiasm - to do the work of the Lord.

1c.)  The effect really depends upon how we respond to the trial. Have you ever been through a trial that strengthens and invigorates you at the end?

1c.) Yes.

1c.)  Have any of your trials inspired others or have you been inspired by another's trial?

1c.) I don't know, but I hope so...for His glory.

[Magnus]

Trials that God places before us give Satan the opportunity to implant doubts in our mind that God is a loving God

[MyBeloved]

When we have trials in our lives Satan wants us to doubt GOD and his wonderful love for us. He wants us to lose our testimony and our direction in the Christian walk.

GOD wants us to come closer to Him in our trials and trust Him to bring us through those trials. He wants us to commit the trials to Him and trust Him to work out the problems.

Yes, I have been through trials that have strengthened me and have brought me closer to the LORD. He has been faithful to show His love and care to me through all of my trials since I came to know Him.

[grace]

1.Satan wants our trials to bring DISCOURAGEMENT to our lives, so that we

will despair and complain about our walk with God and maybe for us to see

God in a different light, causing us to wonder where God is in our affliction.

2.The effect that God wants us to have in our trial is for the trial to refine us

and mature us into the kind of people God can use for His glory.For He knows

when we are tried, we shall come forth like pure gold and be fit for the Master's use. He wants to refine our character so that we will walk more closely with Him.

3. I have been through trials where my faith was tested. I would like to say

that I have seen victory in them, but I found myself struggling to understand

what God was doing, or questioned whether God was involved at all. But I

believe over a period of time, the result of these trials will become evident.

4. I am unable to say that my trials inspired others, but I most certainly have

been inspired by others who have given great testimony to the faithfulness of God in their trials.

[sunilbernard]

Q1. What effect does Satan want trials to have in our life? What effect does God want them to have? The effect really depends upon how we respond to the trial. Have you ever been through a trial that strengthens and invigorates you at the end? Have any of your trials inspired others or have you been inspired by another's trial?

Satan wants us to cower in a corner full of self pity, despair and faithlessness. He is a deceiver and his work is to lead God's children away from Him through his deceit. Whereas God wants us to fight the battle with His strength. God wants us to face the problems in life with a strong attitude saying, if God be for me, who can be against me!!! God wants us to come out of the fire with flying colors, purified and shining like Gold.

Yes, many times I went through the fire of God and came out without a hair being singed. I praise God for the mercy He has shown on me and for leading me through the dark valleys. I am what I am today because of His grace and mercy. I don't know about others being inspired by my trials but I am inspired by the trials my mother in law is facing right now. She has bone cancer and she is fighting it with the help of the Lord, without despair and not wallowing in self pity. She is a great inspiration for our family.

[Kim E.]

Satan would have us thinking humanly. He would wish us to have a worldly mind set on a human solution for our problems. Satan would like to break down our faith and destroy our peace. Our whole being has been affected by the fall: emotions, intellect and will. Satan will stop at nothing to destroy the transformation and the use of our new minds.

God, of course, would have us set our minds on things of the Spirit, to use our godly minds in faith to act upon facts and reason. God would have us think, think, think, but in a vastly different way than that of the world. When we put God first and trust and obey, we consider God

[princesskitty]

1. Satan wants to condemn us. He wishes to use it to show us that the word of God is not true, at least not for us, because how could God love US? How could we be that strong?. He wants us to stay down under foot and not rise up above him to our rightfull place bought by the blood of Christ.

2. God already knows what we can handle at the time, and will never put more on us than we can bear. I believe His intentions are to prove us to ourselves. Most people say that "I couldn't handle that.", but the truth is most people can endure anything that they have to. We just don't know how strong we are until the time comes. Then once passed we can look back and say, "Hey, look how far I've already come! This little problem now is a piece of cake!"

3. Yes, I have been through a trial that strengthened and invigorated me. Basically, my whole life up until a few years ago. Then I repented, and God has been revealing to me my place and His glory ever since. Passing through the darkness by His grace and love---well, I'm never going back!

4. I don't know if I've inspired anyone. Nobody knows the extent of my trials, as I was alone, but who knows. I've definately been inspired by others, and they don't even know it! So maybe someone has stood by and been inspired by me! We just won't know some things until the end, when all things will be revealed.

[linda bass]

Satan wants us to think that God has given up on us. He wants us to believe we our going thru a trial because of some great sin in our lives or because we have a lack of faith. Satan's plan is for us to become discouraged in our faith.

God,however, wants us to come thru a trial with our faith strengthen. He desires that we seek him with our whole hearts during difficult times.

About a couple of years ago, my dept manager at the time was going thru personal problems at home, so she would take it out on me and others in the dept. I work in. She would give someone a task, then before they finished,give them a second task,and before they were done,would give them a 3rd task, and so forth. Then she would yell at the person because the first task wasn't done,accusing them of being 'a slacker' or trying to be

'slick'. She would expect someone to do what is normally a 2-4 hour job and get it done in about 15-20 minutes. Many times, she asked me to come in early or stay late and not once did she every thank me for it. One person in the dept put in her 2 weeks notice because she couldn't deal with the stress or pressure this manager was putting us all under any more. There were so many times when I wanted to give my 2 weeks or just walk out and not look back. However, this wasn't the first time I have felt like quitting a job because of one reason or another. However, I felt the time wasn't right for me to leave my current job just yet. I would pray to God about every morning to give me the strength to help me make it thru another day.

After about 6 months of being in a stressful situation at work, this manager ended up being transferred to another store. Those of us in the dept had a big party to celebrate. (Just kidding!) Anyway, I am so thankful The Lord gave me to strength and endurance to stick it out rather than give up and quit because our current dept manager is alot nicer and more easy going, plus she tries to treat everyone fairly and doesn't expect you to do more than what you are capable of doing.

There is a woman in my church who is going thru a difficult time financially.

She recently lost her job and is currently cleaning houses to earn some money. I've loaned her a few bucks here and there when she's needed it.

I've been in the same situation many times when I didn't even have a nickel to call my own, so I know what she's going thru.

Recently,someone who she trusted and considered a friend, stole money from her purse. I told her how terrible I thought that was and she told me the person would have to answer to God for the theft and she wasn't going to worry about it. Her attitude was a real inspiration to me.

[cct1106]

Q1. What effect does Satan want trials to have in our life? What effect does God want them to have? The effect really depends upon how we respond to the trial. Have you ever been through a trial that strengthens and invigorates you at the end? Have any of your trials inspired others or have you been inspired by another's trial?

Satan attacks and uses our singul tendencies and/or weaknesses. If we are true worshipers of God he tests our faith. God wants us to stand firm and when we feel tested or unsure to pray to him continuously. Have not had a trial that invigorated me but it did stengthen me and gave me hope. If any of my trials inspired anyone, I do not know and haven't heard if it did nor did not.

[kas]

I'm sure satan would like nothing more than doubt, discouragement and defeat resulting in a weaker character whereas God would like strong, encouraged ( faithful) and unwavering characters who stand taller as a result of each trial. I'm in a trial where I know God is working for my good. I don't know all the reasons for the trial, but the main one is that it brought me back to The Awesome and Loving God whom I continually thank for the trial. Yes, others have been inspired by my long, on-going trial.

[AngelOnLine]

Q1. What effect does Satan want trials to have in our life?

Satan wants our trials to lessen our faith and cause us to question God.

What effect does God want them to have?

God wants our trials to strengthen our faith and cause us to lean more heavily on Him.

The effect really depends upon how we respond to the trial. Have you ever been through a trial that strengthens and invigorates you at the end?

Yes I have and God carried me through that trial. Without Him I wouldn

[Alicea]

Q1. What effect does Satan want trials to have in our life? What effect does God want them to have? The effect really depends upon how we respond to the trial. Have you ever been through a trial that strengthens and invigorates you at the end? Have any of your trials inspired others or have you been inspired by another's trial?

Satan wants our trials to lead us away from God and God wants them to draw us closer to Him.

When my husband was dying of cancer I learned how faithful God is. I don't know that I would say I was invigorated at the end but I was definately closer to God. Others say they were blessed by seeing how I handled the situation.

Corey Ten Boom's story, has been an inspiration to me. Everytime I read her book, I learn more about Christ.

[Sue]

Lesson 10 Q 1:

(a) The effects Satan wants trials to have is he wants it to overtake us, he wants us to give up our hope in God. Satan tries to turn us back to his wordly ways.

( The effect God wants them to have is to walk more closely with Him. He wants our trials to strengthen our Faith. God wants us to depend on Him fully and we can only learn to do this through our trials.

© Yes, I have been through trials that strengthens and invigorates me at the end.

(d) I pray that my trials have inspired others. I certainly try to help others when they are in a similiar situation, one way is by telling them how God has helped me.

I have been inspired by another's trial. For ex: watching a loved one or friend deal with cancer. We are never alone, we live in God's world. Amen!

[warrior]

What effect does Satan want trials to have in our life?

Satan wants to shake our faith in God by convincing us that God doesn't care what happens to us and that he doesn't love us or he would not be letting us go through the trial.

What effect does God want them to have?

God wants the trial to drive us closer to Him, to run to His presence in faith knowing that where God is there is victory. He wants us to have our faith strengthened so that we can learn to completely lean on Him and not our own understanding.

The effect really depends upon how we respond to the trial. Have you ever been through a trial that strengthens and invigorates you at the end?

Yes I have had quite a few the most recent a surgery that sent me to ICU with internal bleeding and in shock from loss of blood so that in my semi conscious state my faith that had been build up trough other trials left me able to trust that He would see me through and within 48 hours after that I came home healed.

Have any of your trials inspired others or have you been inspired by another's trial?

Yes since I know what it's like to be totally dependent on God at times for food, a home after mine burned to the ground, and many others things I have been able to encourage others who didn't think they could make it through the trial.

[sjb]

Satan wants us to think that we are going it alone...that we might as well give up...and that God isn't there. God gives us trials for a growing and maturing process. And God is there...just a call away...to strengthen us and guide us. I am sure that we've all had our trials. I'm afraid I wasn't an inspiration to anyone during my most trying time... and it took God, with me weeping and whining all the way, to get me through it. My youngest son has provided our family with inspiration in his trials. When my daughter-in-law was in her 20th week of pregnancy, she was hospitalized for what was to be the duration of her pregnancy. At 25 weeks, still in the hospital, she came down with a SAARS-like illness that threatened her life. The doctors decided that in order to save her, they had to take the baby. Our little Joshi came into the world weighing 2 pounds. His mother stayed on a respirator and at the point of death for 6 more weeks. Joshi grew to weigh 3 pounds during that time, but he was having trouble with taking feedings, so the doctor asked for permission to do a biopsy of his intestines. During the procedure, his intestine was nicked and he developed peritonitis. From February through May, my son made the hospital his home. To the best of my knowledge, he just left the hospital once, and that was when he took us to his home so we could spend the night there. He went from pulminary ICU to neo-natal ICU and back again. And then started the round again. During that time, he did not question God. He just became aware, for the first time in his life, how much he needed God. He was baptized in the hospital chapel when Joshi was a week old. It took God to heal mother and baby and it took God to give my son the strength and faith needed for that ordeal. May God be praised!

[mwright]

Faith does not come easy. Trials are the way to strengthen faith. I invite the trials. Each time I win I know my faith is a little stronger. It is one of little faith that give up on God because they have faced a difficult trial. Many time I have seen belivers turn their backs when the they saw no reason for the trial. Exercise your faith everyday. Exercising your faith is like excising your body. There must be resistance. Feel good church groups are sometime the worse way to excercise your faith. You need to go out into the world and face the nonbeliver. You need to duel with the devil himself. When you know that you have real faith.

Mike

[joanharmelink]

Q1. What effect does Satan want trials to have in our life? What effect does God want them to have? The effect really depends upon how we respond to the trial. Have you ever been through a trial that strengthens and invigorates you at the end? Have any of your trials inspired others or have you been inspired by another's trial?

Sataan is very clever. Any time we are left to our own thoughts he is there to destroy us mentally, physicallu and spiritually. We et caught up with our own thoughts we leae room for him to come in With God it can be a time of pruning and through it all we have His promise that we aare being morein His Image. It produces endurance and become more dependant upon Christ. Yes I have been through many trials but God has been faithful and caarried me through each of them.