Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health

A few months ago, before moving out west, my pastor in Harrisburg handed me a really good book titled "Ten Questions To Diagnose Your Spiritual Health" by Don Whitney. I read it soon thereafter and as I often do, took notes via computer. Tim Challies posted a link to the Kindle version of the book Amazon is offering for FREE (a used hard copy is pretty inexpensive too). I figured that I would give my plug for the book and post a few of the notes I took.

I'm sure Paul's primary motivation in giving me the book is because I mentioned how I often struggled reading through the Psalms.  I've always felt as though I couldn't relate to much of the extreme lovey-dovey or persecuted church sounding psalms.  Paul (and Don) suggested praying through not just the Psalms but all of scripture.  In short, it really gives light and personal meaning to much of the scripture that may seems distant from us...because it's really not.  Praying through Romans 8 is particularly incredible.

Here is a short excerpt from my notes of each chapter:

Chapter 1: Do You Thirst For God?
In Philippians 3:10, Paul wrote of the passion that propelled him: “that I may know Him”. Don points out that he already knew Jesus more closely than perhaps anyone else ever would. “The more Paul progressed in spiritual strength, the more thirsty for God he became.

Meditating on John 4:14 (“whoever drinks of the water I shall give him will never thirst”, John Piper says: “When you drink my water, your thirst is not destroyed forever. If it did that, would you feel any need of my water afterward? That is not my goal. I do not want self-sufficient saints. When you drink my water, it makes a spring in your. A spring satisfies thirst, not by removing the need you have for water, but by being there to give you water whenever you get thirsty. Again and again and again. Like this morning. So drink, John. Drink”

Chapter 2: Are You Governed Increasingly by God’s Word?
Don asks a few questions:
  • Do you find yourself inquiring - consciously - how the Bible speaks to specific areas of life? 
  • Do you ask others, perhaps those in spiritual leadership or who are mature, to help you apply Scripture in particular situations?
  • Is it your practice to actually turn the pages of the Bible in search of the will of God?
I am very convicted by what Don writes in this section. He consistently asks how is scripture changing our lives. Do we simply admire God’s truth or do we LOVE it? What difference do we see in our relationship with God this year, versus last?

“You know that God’s Word is growing in its influence over you when you can point to increasing numbers of beliefs and actions that have been changed because of the potency of specific texts of Scripture” (35).

Chapter 3: Are You More Loving?
A predominant “badge and character” of a growing Christian is an increasing love for others. Not Paul, John the Baptist, D.A. Carson, or John Piper live up to the 1 Corinthians 13 standard of love...only Jesus Christ can/has done that.

As people living in a fallen world, we often wrongly call things “love” that are actually “natural affection” (Romans 1:31, 2 Timothy 3:3)...we naturally love certain people, like our parents or children. We also mask our self-love with “love”...before calling something love, we should ask ourselves “Does it please me first?”

Chapter 4: Are You More Sensitive To God’s Presence?
“I do not mean that we should frequently feel a supernatural presence, for that can be extremely unreliable. Nevertheless, it should not be unusual for us, wherever we are, to recognize that ‘God is here’” (56).

While God’s physical presence surrounds us just like the air (Acts 17:28), “To know the indwelling presence of Christ, one must first, in Jesus’ words, “Repent, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15)” (59).

“The basis of our experience with God is God-revealed truth, not our individual, idiosyncratic opinions about God. We are then much more likely to sense the presence of God as He really is rather than as a God compromised of our preferences” (61). If we take the Rob Bell approach of relativism, then how do we know that we didn’t just have an encounter with a demonic presence masterfully masquerading as an “angel of light” (2 Cor 11:14).

“it’s one thing to long for a sense of God’s presence while not experiencing it, and another to live routinely with no awareness of His absence” (64). The first is marked by the Christian’s agony (as when Jesus cried “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me” - Mat 27:24), the second of apathy.

Chapter 5: Do You Have A Growing Concern For The Spiritual And Temporal Needs Of Others?
In John 4:24, Jesus tells us to “worship in spirit and truth”; however, most of us have an emphasis on either spirit or truth. But in Mark 6:34-44, Jesus cares for the 5,000 physically. Don rephrases James 2:15-16 by saying what we say when we fail to care for people’s temporal needs: “I love you so much and am so concerned about you that I want to give you the words of eternal life, but I don’t care enough to address your basic and pressing physical need”. However, the existence of a need does not always mean a call to meet it. Not even Jesus responded to every need He could have met (Luke 12:1).


Chapter 6: Do You Delight In the Bride Of Christ
“Just as candy delights a child, so the child of God does not have to be persuaded to delight in the supernatural spiritual sweetness found only in God’s church. Delight in the church is inborn in those who are born again” (85).

“The reason why growing Christians so readily delight in being with the saints of God is the real presence of God Himself living within ordinary people we know. Ultimately, you are delighted by Him in them” (86).

Chapter 7: Are the Spiritual Disciplines Increasingly Important To You?
Spiritual Disciples - “the God-ordained means by which we bring ourselves before God, experience Him, and are changed into Christlikeness.”

1 Timothy 4:7 says “Discipline yourself, for the purpose of godliness”. But also keep in mind that these spiritual disciplines are not by themselves the marks of Christlikeness as the means to it (96). Time spent in these disciplines does not matter quite as much as how much they are influencing us.


Chapter 8: Do You Still Grieve Over Sin?
“The closer you get to Christ, the more you will hate sin; for nothing is more unlike Christ than sin” (102). The more like Christ we are, the more sincerely we can join Paul in calling ourselves the worst of all sinners (1 Timothy 1:15).

As we grow nearer to God, we are continually convicted of sin in our lives that we previously had no clue even was sin. A.W. Pink explained, “It is not the absence of sin but the grieving over it which distinguishes the child of God from empty professors [of faith].” Thomas Bernard said: “Our sense of sin ins in proportion to our nearness to God”. Thus, “increased sensitivity to your sin is a mark of growth” (103).

Repentance should not be heartless and mechanical. Godly sorrow is much more than admitting your imperfections - rather, it brings about repentance, a change of mind about the sin that produces a change of behavior. Without true repentance, there is no godly sorrow.

Chapter 9: Are You a Quick Forgiver?
This does not mean that we are forgiven BY forgiving others, but that the character of true Christian will be quick to forgive. KNOWING that God has forgiven me of a debt of sin that I could never repay, I am willing to forgive others.

Our forgiveness should not be dependent on repentance of the other party. As soon as the nails were driven through Jesus’ hands, he prayed “Father, forgive them”.

Chapter 10: Do you Yearn For Heaven And To Be With Jesus?
“There’s nothing uniquely Christian about longing for an end to a wearying existence and the beginning of a new and more restful one” (124)...even Buddhists, Muslims, and atheists want that. Thus the question should not be “Do you yearn for Heaven?” but rather “For which Heaven and which Jesus do you yearn?” A Christian should feel less and less at home in our sin ridden world and instead look forward a holy place, holy people, and a holy God.

Sorry that ended up being so long. I tried to abridge my notes as much as possible without losing anything significant. If you're really too lazy to read the book, I'd be happy to send you the rest of my notes.

No comments:

Post a Comment