The Flaw in my Godly Experiment: True Faith

I've been thinking...I've been thinking about the results of my Godly Experiment and all of the growth that has come from it in consequence. If you are unaware of anything I'm talking about, I'm referring to an "experiment" I did with God in order to see and record His movement in my life. My experiment consisted of me inviting Him into my classroom studies so that I could give Him my all and overall produce better results. I know God has the ability to make us wiser but I wanted to see if he could make me book smart as well as street smart. I set academic goals I wanted to accomplish in light of this experiment and went on my way. Long story short, the outcome of the experiment was not as I expected but I in turn gained so much more than I anticipated in the realm of learning about an ever Holy God. However, after revelations reached today, I see that there was still much to be learned. Before I go on check out, if you'd like, A Godly Experiment and A Godly Experiment Update. Although my intentions were good, as I embarked on this experiment, and even reflected on the results of the experiment, I forgot one fatal commandment that is so very instrumental to the subject at hand:

Deuteronomy 6:16: “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”

Plain as day. The foundation of my Experiment was built upon James 2:17 "faith without works is dead." True, but until recently, I did not truly understand the meaning of this well referenced verse. Our faith in God should produce works. To believe in God is to love God. To love God is to know God. To know God is to obey His commands. This is how faith produces works. We believe what God says to be true so we have no problem living for Him and enjoying this life as He said we should. There has been so much confusion with this core value of Christianity because of the "name it and claim it movement" (which is not Biblical btw...at all) which basically tells Christians that we can get anything we want by using our faith in God to make it happen. "In essence faith is redefined from trusting in a Holy and Sovereign God despite our circumstances to a way of controlling God to give us what we want."

So back to the flaws in my experiment. Not only was I testing God, although His word says not to, but I was basically conducting a transaction of false faith. "God I will put in this work in the classroom so you can make me smarter and bless me with this GPA." Here's the truth about faith: Faith produces works but your works are for God, to please Him and confirm your belief in Him, not in that particular thing you want. In operating out of faith we must first accept God's will above our own. Psalm 37:34 tells us to "trust in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." We must accept His will above our own because we know we will be supplied with what is best for us. His word says He will give us the desires of our heart so although we may be earnestly praying for one particular thing now, God knows our true desire and He will bless us accordingly. So in essence, God does us a favor when He does not answer our prayers directly as we'd like Him to because there are something's we think we want because we see the situation from the outside looking in but if we truly knew what we were getting into we would've prayed for something different in the first place. Faith is trusting that God is ALWAYS looking out for our greater good.

In a nutshell:

Faith produces works but your works are for God, to please God and to confirm your belief in Him. You give your all in the classroom (in the case of my experiment)  to show God that you believe that He honors your hard work and will fulfill His promises, no matter what they may be because you know that He knows whats best for you. "I'm gonna do this God because I believe your word to be true. Not because I expect this specific thing in return, but because I know whatever you choose to bless me with will be more than enough and will surpass all of my humanly expectations."<--- true faith.

Until next time,

Camille4Christ