“But You Have Not Been Tested”

By Dr jarlat Uche opara
Goodmorning my beloved parishioners. Weeks are running into days. The end of the year is close. Just a stone throw, before one knows it 2025 is gone and 2026 standing, gazing into our eyes. December seems the most challenging. Bills to pay, things to buy to make the festive period most memorable and enjoyable.

The knife of kidnapping is sharpened. The gun of ritual killing trigger happy, and the skills of robbers honed for deployment. Even bussiness men and women are ready to cut corners to make ends meet this period.

Until you are tested and certified, be less to judge and condemn, it could be you but for grace.

We speak oftentimes with boldness about the battles we think we can win, judge with confidence the weaknesses we believe we can never have. Yet time, experience, and Scripture whisper a sobering truth: you cannot boast about a strength that has never been tested, nor condemn another for walking and faltering on a road you have never walked.

The human heart is a complex terrain, beautiful, fragile, and unpredictable. As Christians, we carry within us a dual capacity: the potential for holiness and the potential for failure. The same Peter who swore he would die with Jesus was the same Peter who denied Him three times before dawn. The same David who worshipped with pure devotion was the same David who stumbled when confronted with temptation. Strength untested is only theory; character unproven is only intention.

So before we boast, “I can never do it …,” let us remember that our confidence is safest only in God, not in ourselves.

Before you condemn another’s weakness, admit that you too, carry seeds capable of growing into the very things you criticize. We are all potential, potential for good, potential for error, potential to shine, and potential to fall.

Life’s trials are the true examinations of the soul. Until you have walked through the fire and emerged refined, do not boast about your resistance to the flame. Until you have faced the door of temptation and turned away, do not assume the ease of doing so. Until you have stood at the crossroads where conviction is costly, do not mock those who compromised under pressure.

Humility teaches that the difference between the fallen and the standing is often just grace. And grace is never earned only received.

So walk gently. Speak with mercy. Pray for strength.
And remember always: “But you have not been tested…”

The truth is 80% of Christians are Christians by virtue of the process of baptism, names and going to church, not because of the evidence of their proof of faithfulness, uncompromising stance, trust and show of godliness when pushed to the wall and eyes of people not staring. Don’t say you can’t steal until you pass the temptation of taking off your eyes over 500milion bride on a platter at a point you are in dire straits . Don’t say you are above the sin of the flesh until you are overstretched by compelling and overwhelming scene and one comes out unwounded.

It is only when the storm comes,only when the winds rise,
only when ones faith is weighed on scales unseen and one remains unruffled and unconquered that the true measure of who you are is revealed.

Until one is tested and proven faithful, ones Christianity could be a potential one not certified, approved, stamped and sealed. What we condemn in others we may fall into if grace abides not.

Be slow to judge. Don’t be quick to condemn. Correct in love and show compassion and empathy when one is found stains and wounded by the arrows of sin. Not a time to act as deputy like deputy Jesus

Until you are tested and you stand unwaveringly, that next person your finger accuses could be you if the table turns.

Fr. Blunt