The Art of Self-Examination – Part Three

In examining yourself do it as:

A military officer reviewing his troops, not from a distant mountain top, but closely.

As a lawyer cross-examines a witness.

As a hiker does the country through which he walks.

“Do you not know yourselves”

“Prove yourselves”. Every life can stand self-examination but not every life can stand and give proof. Our works can’t save us, but they can show proof we are saved.

Some Christians have difficulty accepting the fact they are saved. Why?

Some have a consistently gloomy nature. The person who habitually looks on the dark side of everything will also look at salvation in the same manner.

Some have physical problems. Some persons associate salvation with physical wholeness and because they are not physically well they have questions about their own salvation.

Some overestimate the conditions and circumstances associated with salvation. They know they have put their faith in Christ and have experienced a change but are suspicious that it is not right because it was not like some other person’s emotional state at the time of salvation. As it does not matter where and how a blind person gains sight so the physical circumstances in which we are saved varies and matters not.

Some assume false standards of Christian character. They read great biographies and assume they must be like those people. Thus, they overlook that the authors omit the flaws in personalities and character of many of these saints. They conclude they should be flawless also.

Take this test as to whether or not you are “in the faith.”

Do you love the Lord Jesus? Not just the good things He gives you, but do you love Him?

Do you have faith in Jesus as Savior – not merely superficial acclaim, but deep personal trust related to His forgiveness?

Have you sincerely repented of sin?

Do you love to obey Jesus and seek to obey His word?

Every person ought to give serious thought to this issue and make certain they are right with the Lord. Self-examination is essential. The blessings are certain.

The Art of Self-Examination – Part Two

“Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Prove yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? — unless you are disqualified (false professors)” verse 5.  II Corinthians 13:1 – 5

Now the question: “Are you in the faith?”

If so, your new life had its birth in an atmosphere of faith, it lives by trusting in God as your body does by breathing. Does Jesus dwell in you? If so, your life is bearing the “fruit of the Spirit.” To know yourself is to rehearse for the judgment day.

To fail to engage in self-examination is to be subject to creeping indifference and forgetfulness. It will allow unconscious gradual but growing spiritual decay.

Are you in the faith? If so, prove yourself. To “prove” is to test, to try, to be subject to a test.

Scriptural self-examination is the only sure way to avoid self-deception. It is not an option; it is a divinely commanded responsibility. Don’t let your self-examination be superficial, the purpose is to probe your heart to the very bottom. Don’t fear exposing yourself to your own eyes. Seek the help of the Lord in doing this reconnaissance. Pray with the Psalmist: “Search me and try me, O God, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Self-searching and Scripture-seeking must be carried on at the same time. In this way you have the Holy Spirit to enlighten you. Examine yourself by a standard unseen but real – Jesus Christ.

The purpose of this self-examination relates to whether you “are in the faith.” Are you decidedly more than an indifferent cold assenting receiver of Christian doctrine? It is possible for a person to be and at the same time in spirit opposed to all heavenly conduct. All professors are not possessors. Jesus told us wheat and tares grow together. Even in the ark of Noah there was a disbelieving and disobedient son named Ham. There was a disbelieving Ishmael in the family of Abraham and a profane Esau in the household of Isaac.

When engaging in self-examination keep these things in mind:

Don’t deal merely with external conduct. If this were the only basis, a well regarded hypocrite might exonerate himself.

Don’t examine yourself in light of what others think of you. We will have a tendency to take flattery for fact and criticism will produce a defensive mood. Cool, deliberate independent self-examination is the standard.

Don’t overlook slight symptoms. In medical science these often save the patient’s life.

Remember the purpose of self examination is not to condemn yourself, but to let Jesus put you on a correction course so that you may enjoy your salvation.

The Art of Self-Examination – Part One

“Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Prove yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? — unless you are disqualified (false professors)”. II Corinthians 13:5

Jesus either is or is not in your life.

Jesus either is or is not in control of your life.

Examine yourself! Is He in? Is He in control?

Our text indicates the Corinthians had been engaged in an art at which most believers are most adapted. They were engaged in the examination of others, not themselves. Verse 4 forms a parenthesis in the text. They had been attempting to examine the life of Paul. Paul instead urges them to examine themselves.

In the text “yourselves” is emphatic both times it is used meaning “Yourselves be testing… yourselves be proving.”

Suppose someone were to say to you: “Prove to me that Jesus is in you.” Can you do it? Prove it.

As we engage in self-examination on this occasion, I want to appeal to you not to make it morbid. A miner doesn’t look for dust and dirt, but gold. There may be a lot of dust and dirt equivalents in your life and if so they should be gotten out, but just now let’s search for the main load, the real gold, Jesus Christ.

Systematic self-examination for the purpose of correcting faults and gaining a perspective of one’s spiritual condition is a worthy ancient craft.

Paul’s contemporary, the Stoic Seneca, wrote of his habit in this regard: “When the day was over and Sextius had gone to his night’s rest, he used to ask his mind: ‘What bad habit of yours have you cured today? What vice have you resisted? In what respect are you better?’ Anger will cease and will be more moderate, when it knows it must daily face the judge. Could anything be more beautiful than this habit of examining the whole day? What a sleep is that which follows self-scrutiny! How calm, how deep and free, when the mind is either praised or admonished, when it has looked into itself, and, like a secret censor, makes a report upon its own moral state. I avail myself of this power, and daily try my own case.”

Our Puritan predecessors daily surveyed their lives. Under the dominance of the Holy Spirit they scrutinized their individual conduct. A calm, self-possessed character was the consequence.

If you determine to daily survey your life you will find how clever you are at hiding favorite pet undesirables in the recesses of your mind.

Now the question: “Are you in the faith?”

God – Part Seven

Sometimes a parent will bring a little child up and say, “She has a question to ask you.” The child’s question: “Where did God come from?” No simple question.

We think in straight lines. A day begins and ends. A child is born and an adult dies. We think in beginnings and ends.

Hold up a ring and ask, “Where is the end of this ring?” It has no beginning or ending. So it is with God. He always has been.

Before creation there was no time and at the end of the world time will cease to be. From God’s vantage point in eternity His perspective of everything is always in the present.

The Psalmists framed this for us in these words: “From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God” (Psalm 90:2). Meaning “from vanishing point in times past to vanishing point in the future God always has been and always will be.” Our capacity to think of the beginning and end of time reaches a limit and our capacity to conceive of eternity ends.

Astronomers and physicists are giving us a hint of this by showing there is no time on the cusps of black holes in deep outer space. Near a black hole, the slowing of time is extreme. From the viewpoint of an observer outside the black hole, time stops. For example, an object falling into the hole would appear frozen in time at the edge of the hole.

Einstein’s Theory of Relativity proves time can be made to stop. If a person could travel at the speed of light, time would stop.

An understanding of omniscience (full knowledge of God) would be aided if we had a better understanding of time. John 1:1 opens with the words “In the beginning…” In the Greek text there is no article before “time.” It is simply “In beginning,” meaning there was an occasion when time began. The text literally means “before time began to begin…” Time itself was a part of creation. Christ spoke of a time when the world would and “time” should be no more (Matthew 13:39, 40, 49; 24:3, 31). 

In death we move from a sphere where there is time to one where there is no time. There are two regions in this sphere: heaven and hell. God’s grace is at its zenith in that He allows us to decide in which we will spend eternity.

Christ came from the sphere where there was no time, heaven, into our sphere where there is time. He came to give His life that if we will submit and commit to Him as Savior at death we might step into the sphere where there is no time, heaven.

On the cross, by His bountiful grace, He provided for you all that He asks from you. I appeal to you to commit your life to Jesus Christ and receive His wonderful gift of salvation.

It is grace that has given you not only the ability but the responsibility to make a choice that determines your destiny.

God – Part Six

The number of atheists (a = without; theos = god) and agnostics (a = without; gnosis = knowledge) has dramatically increased in recent years. The errors of such doctrine need to be refuted.

During the old USSR I shared with a hardened member of the KGB proof of God’s existence. As the conversation progressed I noticed a tear on his cheek and asked if I could help. He said no it was just that he had been reared in an atheistic country, and it saddened him to know God had been there all the time and no one ever told him, and not only was He there but that He loved him. He is representative of many in America.

Romans 1: 20 shouts of evidence of God: “Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities… have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.” Imagine a car existing without a designer and maker. Could a C-5 airplane rolling off the assembly line at Lockheed Georgia and it being argued it came into being as a result of an explosion in the storage building. If there is a C-5 there must be a designer and builder.

The very existence of our beautifully designed universe shouts there is a God, and Calvary shared His love.

In our court a criminal is found guilty under the law and sentenced to prison. For there to be a law there had to be a lawmaker. The laws of nature evidence a lawmaker.

When challenged to prove God’s existence, ask the enquirer to prove He does not exist. In doing so, keep in mind the law of logic which says you can’t prove a negative. You can’t prove words don’t exist without using words. You can’t prove God does not exist without using examples He does.

Objective truth would not exist were there no universal source of objectivity, no universal laws against evil such as murder and lying, no power of reason, and no laws of science. 

It is impossible for God not to exist. Without Him these things would not exist. The fact they do proves He does exist. This line of logic is known as “Transcendental Proof for the Existence of God.”

Truth proves God exists. Some claim there is no absolute truth, all is relative. This claim itself is an absolute truth proving absolute truth does exist. If absolute universal truth, such as the laws of math, science, and morality exist, there must be a universal source of truth. That source is God. There can be no truth without God. The fact that truth does exist is proof that God does.

If morality is based on consensus, the atrocities of ISIS must be considered acceptable because a consensus of a sect of Islam approves it. For truth and morality to exist it cannot be merely based on opinion, for opinions vary and are not absolute. Absolutes acclaim the existence of God.

Back to the KGB agent. Not only does God exist, He loves you. Why not love Him back?