Spiritual
Checkup
2
Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves to see whether you are
in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in
you—unless, of course, you fail the test?
The Christians put the Apostle Paul to the test. They claimed
that he was not a true Apostle because he had not traveled with Jesus during
His three-year ministry. So Paul turned the tables on the Corinthian Christians
and told them to examine themselves in this verse.
No follower of Christ ever grows beyond the necessity for
self-assessment (1 Corinthians 11:28; Galatians 6:4).
Some in Corinth needed to conduct a personal audit of their standing with God.
The Corinthians delightfully criticized Paul's ministry without scrutinizing
themselves. God compels genuine Christians to gauge where we are in our
spiritual growth. The notion here is to ascertain whether the
Corinthians held to the Christian understanding of salvation with unwavering
faith. The idea is to stand firm in the faith (2 Corinthians 1:24).
Paul did not renounce them as Christians, or else he would not have insisted on
them administering the test on themselves. Instead, their examination was
whether or not they were striving to be more like Christ, which are lives of
weakness that appealed to God's power.
If we are not straightforward with ourselves, we can never mature in our walk with Christ. Self-examination is the way we establish how much we have grown spiritually. Maturity is the submission to the ideologies of God's Word that we experience through faith. We employ a portion of the Word that pertains to our sin and our faith's weaknesses. Then as we continue to apply the Word of God to our daily lives, we will increasingly mature in Christ Jesus.
Followers of Christ Jesus
cannot sidestep Jesus' display of weakness, which is irrational to the system
of the world's thinking. The Power of God can only be seen in what He does, not
anything we might attempt (1 Corinthians 4:10; 2 Corinthians
4:11). This biblical truth is the enigma of Christian dynamics; the
power of God does the work (1 Corinthians 3:12-15).
People engaged with their
arrogance and pride in the ministry are hazardous to the cause of Christ. These
people are prime examples of denying God’s grace and mercy necessary for living
a Godly Life. Christian behavior is the benchmark to establish whether our
assertions about Christianity are binding and effective. We are appropriately
concerned that every follower of Christ has an assurance of their salvation and
understands how to prevail in the attacks that come from Satan every day of our
lives.
When we examine ourselves, we are submitting to the assessment and scrutiny of Christ Jesus and humbly asking Him to reveal to us in what area of our lives we need attention to sin. Self-assessment removes the chill from our spirit; it removes the hardness from our hearts, the shadows from our life, and liberates us from the guilt of sin. We stand ready to examine and test our other brothers and sisters in Christ, but first, we must examine ourselves. The trouble at the Corinthian Church was they condemned Paul and neglected to investigate themselves.
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