Examine Yourself

Octavius Winslow  Daily Walking With God

Search the Scriptures, and examine closely your own walk, and ascertain in what particular your obedience to Christ is deficient. Be upright, honest, and sincere in your inquiry. Let your fervent prayer be, "Lord, what will You have me to do? Is there any precept of Your word slighted, any, command disobeyed, any cross not taken up? Is there any desire to withhold my neck from Your, yoke, or to withdraw my shoulder from Your burden, or to mark out a smoother path than that which You have chosen and bade me walk in? Is there any secret framing of excuse for my disobedience, any temporizing, any carnal feeling, any worldly motive, any fear of man, any shrinking from consequences?" 

To the reader conscious of secret declension in his soul, we propose the same searching and tender inquiry. You did run well; who hindered you? (Galatians 5:7) What stumbling block has fallen in your way? What has impeded your onward course? What has enfeebled your faith, chilled your love, drawn your heart from Jesus, and lured you back to the weak and beggarly elements of a poor world? You set out fair; for a time you did run well; your zeal, and love, and humility gave promise of a useful life, of a glorious race, and of a successful competition for the prize; but something has hindered you. What is it? Is it the world, creature love, covetousness, ambition, presumptuous sin, unmortified corruption, the old leaven unpurged? Search it out. Rest not until it be discovered.

Is the Lord Jesus becoming increasingly precious to your soul? Are you growing in poverty of spirit, in a deeper sense of your vileness, weakness, and unworthiness? Is pride more abased, and self more crucified, and God’s glory more simply sought? Does the heart more quickly shrink from sin, and is the conscience more sensitive to the touch of guilt, and do confession and cleansing become a more frequent habit? Are you growing in more love to all the saints—to those, who, though they adopt not your entire creed, yet love and serve your Lord and Master? (But remember) your evidences, your comfort, your hope, do not spring from your fruitfulness, your mortification, or anything within you; but solely and entirely from the Lord Jesus Christ. 

On Romans 8:9 “Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.”  

The Spirit of Christ leads to Christ. Has He led you to Christ? Can you say, “Christ is made unto me wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption”? (1 Corinthians 1:30) What do you think of Christ? Is His blood precious? Does His righteousness give you peace? Does His grace subdue your sins? Do you in sorrow travel to His sympathy, in weakness take hold of His strength, in perplexity seek His counsel, in all your steps acknowledge and wait for Him? Is Christ thus all in all to you? Then you have the Spirit of Christ.

Not only does the Spirit lead to Christ, but He also conforms those thus led to the image of Christ. He guides us to Christ, not for consolation and instruction only, but also for assimilation. If we are humble, we have the Spirit of Christ—for He was humble. If we are meek, we have the Spirit of Christ—for He was meek. If we believe, we have the Spirit of Christ—for He lived a life of faith. If we love God, we have the Spirit of Christ—for He was the incarnation of love. If we are holy, we have the Spirit of Christ—for He was without sin. If we are obedient, meek, and self-denying in suffering, silent in provocation, submissive in chastisement, patient in tribulation, and rejoicing in hope, then have we the Spirit of Christ, for He was all this.

The question, “Am I Christ’s?” hinges upon the answer to the question, “Have I the Spirit of Christ?”  

On Hebrews 10:35

What is the real state of your faith? Is it as lively, vigorous, and active as it was when you first believed? Has it undergone no declension? Is the object of faith as glorious in your eye as He then was? Are you not now looking at second causes in God's dealings with you, instead of lifting your eye and fixing it on Him alone? What is your faith in prayer? -  do you come boldly to the throne of grace, asking, nothing doubting? Do you take all your trials, your needs, your infirmities, to God? What is your realization of eternal things- is faith here in constant, holy exercise? Are you living as a pilgrim and a sojourner, "choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God" (Hebrews 11:25) than float along on the summer sea of this world's enjoyments? What is the crucifying power of your faith? -  does it deaden you to sin, and wean you from the world, and constrain you to walk humbly with God, and near to Jesus? And when the Lord brings the cross, and says, "Bear this for Me," does your faith promptly and cheerfully acquiesce, "any cross, any suffering, any sacrifice for You, dear Lord"? Thus may you test the nature and the degree of your faith; bring it to the touch-stone of God's truth, and ascertain what its character is, and how it has suffered declension. 

On Romans 8:5

By this truth let us test the reality of our religious profession. In this light let us closely examine our Christian character and walk. What, reader, is the habitual and supreme bent of your mind? Is it that which is spiritual, or that which is carnal? Judge of your preparation for death, in the near view of its approaching solemnities. Decide upon your state for eternity, in the rapid progress of its deepening shadows. Ascertain the real state of your case for the judgment, in the certain arrival of its dread scrutiny. You have your mind either set upon the things of the flesh, or upon the things of the Spirit. You are either born again from above, or are groveling in things below. You are either holy, or you are unholy. You are for the Lord, or you are against Him. You are either Satan's slave or Christ's freeman. Which?

Personal Declension and Revival of Religion in the Soul, 1841

https://www.gracegems.org/W/pd0.htm

It must be admitted, that the character and the tendencies of the age are not favourable to deep and mature reflection upon the hidden, spiritual life of the soul.

Nothing perhaps more strongly indicates the tone of a believer’s spirituality, than the light in which the Scriptures are regarded by him.

It is no step towards the recovery of a sickly state, to disguise the worst symptoms of that state from the eye. The mark of true wisdom and skill is, to ascertain the worst of the disease, to probe the depth of the wound. And although such a course may be painful to the patient, it is essential to his thorough recovery. Beloved reader, it is important that thou shouldst know the exact state of thy soul before God.

And if thou art sincere in that petition which has often breathed from thy lip, ‘Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me’ (Psalm 139:23-24); thou wilt thank him for any gentle and faithful admonition that sets thee upon the great work of self-examination.

The first direction which we would give in the way of recovery is, acquaint yourself thoroughly with the real state of your soul as before God. As the first step in conversion was to know yourself to be a lost, helpless, condemned sinner; so now, in your re-conversion to God, you must know the exact state of your soul. Be honest with yourself; let there be a thorough, faithful examination of your spiritual condition; let all disguise be removed, the eye withdrawn from the opinion of men, and the soul shut in with God in a close scrutiny of its worst state. The ‘backslider in heart’ (Proverbs 14:14) may deceive himself, he may deceive others, but God he cannot deceive. (Jeremiah 17:10)

Take the cause of the soul’s declension immediately to the throne of grace, and lay it before the Lord. There must be no parleying with it, no compromise, no concealment: there must be a full and unreserved disclosure before God, without aught of palliation or disguise.

Set out afresh for God and heaven, as though you had never started in the way before. Commence at the beginning; go as a sinner to Jesus; seek the quickening, healing, sanctifying influence of the Spirit; and let this be your prayer, presented, and urged until answered, at the footstool of mercy: ‘O Lord, revive thy work! Quicken me, O Lord, Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation!’

Jonathan Edwards  A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections

Seeing therefore that these are the things which God employs to try us, it is undoubtedly the surest way, in order to pass a right judgment, to try ourselves by the same things. These trials are not for his information, but for ours; therefore we ought to receive our information from thence. The surest way to know our gold, is to examine it in God’s furnace, where he tries it for that very end, that we may see what it is.

        What is a true Christian?

1. That his behaviour or practice in the world be universally conformed to, and directed by Christian rules.

2. That he makes a business of such a holy practice (of bearing fruit of "universal obedience" to the word and will of God) above all things; that it be a business which he is chiefly engaged in, and devoted to, and pursues with highest earnestness and diligence: so that he may be said to make this practice of religion eminently his work and business.

3. That he persists in it to the end of life: so that it may be said, not only to be his business at certain seasons, the business of Sabbath days, or certain extraordinary times, or the business of a month, or a year, or of seven years, or his business under certain circumstances; but the business of his life; it being that business which he perseveres in through all changes, and under all trials, as long as he lives.

Practice is the best evidence of a saving belief of the truth (and) the most proper evidence of a true coming to Christ, and accepting of and closing with him.