Article: SELF-EXAMINATION

Friday, October 18, 2002 - 09:24 PM

SELF-EXAMINATION
By Patrick D. Andrews

The missionary wrote back to a location where he spent some 18 months doing all of those things that are necessary to ensure that the newly planted congregation remains viable and faithful. His letter indicates his knowledge of their actions towards each other and God. He explicitly rebukes, challenges, and exhorts them to be better.

They were having their problems with divisive actions, acceptable sin, weakness in their spirituality, and failure to realize the importance of salvation. They had forgotten their former self. They were busy going through some motions without focusing on the sacrifice of the Christ. Their remembrance of His Cross was cursory at best. Some were eating full course meals (to excess) while some of their poor brethren were going hungry--they thought it was worship.

Paul challenged them to examine their motives and actions. 1 Corinthians 11:28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. This examination is more than a few moments of reflection that might be suggested by one who assists the service of the Lord's Supper. It's a reflection on the life that is lived--before and after salvation.

This is the import of preaching and teaching the "whole package" of Christianity. 2 Timothy 4:1-8 I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: 2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. 5 But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. 6 For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.

Sometimes we find ourselves, as God's children, looking into the distant eternity and pondering our salvation. This is not a reference to whether we have given up sin, confessed Jesus as the Son of God, and been baptized for the remission of our sins, but rather a deeper examination. Do you know whether you are justified, sanctified, and redeemed? Where will you spend eternity?

Some years ago, there was a Christian from the other side of this town that had an interesting answer to the commonplace Texas style greeting. When someone asked him, "What do you know?" His response was, "I know that I'm saved!" His words, and the point is that it is indeed possible to examine one's own soul and know that you are saved.

Paul, in another place, assured the Christians to whom he wrote that they could know about their forgiveness. Romans 8:1-4 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Meaning this: if we are in Christ, by means of the blood of Christ, the sins, for which we are indeed guilty, are not held against us. Therefore, if we are led by the Spirit (the teachings within God's word), then we find fulfillment in being righteous through Jesus Christ. It's the product of the plan of God. Ephesians 1:3-4 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,

God set His eternal redemption process in motion at the advent of sin. When Eve and Adam reached for the sinful fruit, God began His reach toward man through His only begotten Son. It is His outstretched love that began from the His throne and has continued down through the ages. The culmination of His grace is shown at the cross. His love for man is clearly seen in His offering on Calvary for each of us. The only question is whether we will accept the sacrifice or not.

Jesus willfully gave Himself on a cruel cross because of a love for the will of the Father and our lost souls Ephesians 2:4-9 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Consequently, we constantly revisit the issue of self-examination. Then we reach upwards toward heaven with greater determination to love Him even more than before.