Putting God to the Test

Satan challenged Jesus with scripture trying to get Him to act upon a promise in scripture without the Father's guidance to do so.

The devil took Him along to the holy city, Jerusalem, and stood Him on the pinnacle of the Temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here. For it is written that 'He will charge His angels concerning you, to protect you, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest your foot be striking on a stone.'" (Matthew 4:5-6, Luke 4:9-11)

Commentary 1:
How often have we fled to scripture instead of to the living God & said, "the promise in this verse is for me!" then had nothing come of it? We may have followed Satan's tempting rather than God's guiding in doing this. Satan, as he did with Jesus, may take a scripture & say, "This promise is for you right now! Go act upon it now!" just so you'll end up being disappointed with God, trusting Him less. What we did was trust in the scripture more than the living God inside of us. We trusted in past impersonal promises more than the personal & present Prince of Peace & ended up with less peace.

Commentary 2:
This was Satan's response to Jesus quoting scripture saying, "Man will not live on bread alone, but upon every word coming out from the mouth of God.” Satan thinks, "Ok if He's going to say He lives by God's word I'll get Him to act on one of the written promises." Interestingly Jesus called this "putting God to the test." Jesus didn't need to see God pass the test because He already fully trusted Him in truth. In the NT a test is often a method to gain reason for accusation (ie if the test is not passed). But Jesus wasn't playing Satan's game.

Things New Testament scripture describes as putting God to the test:
Acting upon a written promise of God (most likely apart from the Father's real time guidance).
Demanding God give you a sign.
Making demands of God.
Asking God (scripture) morality questions so you can criticize the answer.
Requiring yourself or others to keep the law.
Being dishonest about your giving.

When you really trust someone you won't even think about making demands of them. You will rest knowing that they will take care of everything. You will trust that they are good & loving to you.