How Well Do You Know Yourself?
One of the things common in this neck of the woods is Wednesday evening services, which as a teen is how I was introduced to my present church and consequently to Jesus Christ.
Unlike the traditional Sunday morning praise and worship services, Wednesday evening services at my church start off with a fellowship dinner followed by fellowship meetings & Bible study for the Youth Group, various Bible studies for senior adults women’s groups, activities for the younger children & the multiple adult bible study times led by elders and the pastor. The evening is devoted to individual group time versus Sunday morning service which is targeted for the entire congregation.
Anywho… during tonight’s Adult Bible Study time, our pastor shared among the group a handout that had a few questions that we we’re to grade ourselves on. The exercise then entailed having another member, preferably someone that knows you well, take your sheet & honestly grade the questions according to their observation/perception of your personality.
For each question that both you and the grader concurred on, 1 check mark is received. After going through all of the questions, the check marks are tallied up and then “graded”. The handout can be downloaded here.
The idea behind the exercise is to acquire an outside assessment of yourself, thereby gaining a secondhand sense of where you are spiritually with living to please God. The or a litmus test to measure yourself, comes from 1st Thessalonians 3:11 through 4:8.
Our pastor asked this question of the text: “What specifically is God saying will come to be in our lives through Him, what specifically is God telling us to do?”, of which the group came up with the following:
Living a Godly life leads to:
- being blameless (1st Thessalonians 3:13)
- being holy (1st Thessalonians 3:13)
- pleasing to God (1st Thessalonians 4:1)
- obedience to God (1st Thessalonians 4:2) “For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.”
- sanctification (1st Thessalonians 4:3)
- being honorable (1st Thessalonians 4:1)
The Lord tells us to:
- avoid sexual immorality (1st Thessalonians 4:3)
- practice self control (1st Thessalonians 4:4)
- be righteous to each other (1st Thessalonians 4:6)
- be pure (1st Thessalonians 4:7) “For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.”
The meat & potatoes is this… as Christians we don’t belong to this world, we live in it but are not of it (1st Peter 2:11); however if we are not careful to watch our activities and surroundings, we can end up walking into traps, becoming vulnerable to temptations that lead to sin, thus being of the world. A case of putting yourself in harms way by flirting with temptation.
The idea is to know, to discover what are the stumbling blocks in your life, and how to avoid those pitfalls. For the person that has an alcohol/substance problem, they would do well to stay away from bars, clubs or “friends” that participate in such things. For the one that has a sexual addiction, pornography obviously is a no-no, but there may be other stimuli such as movies, television, conversations with sexual innuendos. For the brother or sister that struggles with an eating compulsion, perhaps something as “innocent” as the bi-hourly Burger King commercial makes you want to binge, or maybe it’s the smell of donuts in the morning.
I’ve been taking part in a discipleship training course for the past month or so, of which part of the curriculum is to memorize Scripture. By God’s grace & His workings, two memory verses come to mind, the first gives us assurance of victory over sin & the second assures us of forgiveness of our sins.
Assurance of Victory
1st Corinthians 10:13
No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.Assurance of Forgiveness
1st John 1:9
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Grace and peace be with you.