Some of us like taking tests. Most of us would rather avoid them. But being tested is an unavoidable part of life. Our lives are full of tests. Formal tests. Informal tests. Difficult tests and easy tests. Wouldn’t it be great if some of life’s greatest tests simply required a little studying, a number 2 pencil and a few minutes in a quiet classroom? I wonder how often I would be tempted to sleep in on some of those testing days!
Wouldn’t it also be great if those same life tests could be graded on a curve? Better yet, how about simply giving us a pass or fail result. That’s how the Department of Motor Vehicles operates. They don’t award levels of driver’s licenses based upon a scale. You either pass or you fail. You don’t get a special version of the license to drive on the highways if you get an A, and a version to restrict you to local streets if you get a C.
The same is true when someone takes a test to become a citizen of a new country. They are granted citizenship only after they pass the test.
Is there any of life’s tests more important than the one that determines our citizenship in God’s Kingdom? So how do we know if someone is a child of God? In I John 3:10 we read, “This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.”
Doing “what is right” does not mean doing “everything right.” That would be impossible for us. The next verse helps us understand what is right: “For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another” (v11).
When I look back on our son Elijah’s time with us on earth, I am thrilled that he passed the most important of life’s tests. He had such a Godly love for others, and he sacrificed so much of his time and energy to spread God’s love to the people around him. He loved all of his brothers and sisters, including the ones he knew he hadn’t yet met! In one of his last text messages to me he wrote, “I am going to change the lives of millions of people and spread the word of God because that’s what God’s plan was all along,” He was, indeed, a citizen of the Kingdom of God.
“We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brothers.” (I John 3:14)
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-Ken Buchanan
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