Spiritual Check -Up

Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves….(2 Corinthians 13:5 NLT)

It is not an accident that in the very last chapter of Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church, he asked them to examine their faith and develop the habit of evaluating themselves. The whole Bible itself is full of instances where people are encouraged to examine themselves. For example, In Lamentations 3 verse 40, Jeremiah enjoined the Israelites to do a soul-searching and to test themselves. The Psalmist also in Psalms 119 verse 59 wrote about how he “thought about his own ways”. I believe Jesus also gestured to this subject of self-examination in his parable of the mote and the beam (Matthew 7:1-5). But, unfortunately, it seems we are often quick to evaluate others rather than ourselves. It is in fact a natural human instinct to look outward rather than looking inward. We are often inclined to look at the mote in others’ eyes rather than tending to the beam in our own eyes.

Paul instructed the Corinthians to check themselves to see if their faith was genuine. Sometimes, like the Corinthian church, we are so overconfident about our faith that we don’t see the need to bring its genuineness under scrutiny. I can’t help but be reminded of the Pharisees. Perhaps if they were more critical of themselves, they would have realized that God wasn’t particularly fond of their service. I really appreciate a note on 2 Corinthians 13:5 that states that “just as we get physical check-ups, Paul urges us to do spiritual check-ups too”. Even when we do not feel sick, we are advised to do medical check-ups regularly because some ailments may be asymptomatic and it is by doing check-ups that they can be discovered and treated. This is what obtains in the spiritual realm too. Sometimes we are so blind to our own shortcomings and, as a result, we miss the chance to do a honest self-reflection which could help bring those shortcomings to light.

We need a level of humility to be able to sit with our own thoughts and subject ourselves to the scrutiny of our own conscience. Jeremiah tells us that the heart of man is deceitful and that even man himself may not know what he is capable of. This is where God comes in. We need to help of the Holy Spirit to help us unearth our motivations and gauge our intentions. It takes the help of God to be able to see through our own heart and sincerely weigh in on our own behavior and motivations. The Psalmist had this understanding and it made him seek God for self-examination. Examine me, O God, and know my mind; test me, and discover my thoughts. Find out if there is any evil in me and guide me in the everlasting way (Psalm 26:2, GNT).

The truth is: God knows you more than you will ever know yourself. And, as your spiritual surgeon, he exposes your spiritual ailments through the microscope of his word. Yes, His word is His scalpel and it is so sharp that  it penetrates to the very core of your being,  where soul and spirit, bone and marrow meet. It interprets and reveals the true thoughts and secret motives of our hearts (Hebrews 4:12). Spiritual check-ups provide us with a glimpse of ourselves in the mirror of God’s word. We see our frightening nakedness, our odious reflection. But the good news is that the aim of a spiritual check-up is not to humiliate us but to help to live a better Christian life. Just as physical check-ups help us to be healthier, regular spiritual check-ups help intensify the presence and power of God in our lives.

What strikes me in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is that he is not asking unbelievers (or spiritually unhealthy people) to do regular spiritual check-up. It is we, Christians, whom he is addressing. This again emphasizes the importance of regular checks and balances so as to see if we are still in sync with God. We need regular spiritual check-ups in order to see when we have (or have not) wandered away from God. We need to check to see any potential for heresies in our hearts. We must check and eliminate “every little leaven that leavens the whole lump” and every trace of a cancerous growth of sin. We need a regular spiritual check-up to enhance the genuineness of our faith.