Paul finishes his letter to the Corinthians with a vital directive: “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves.” Self-examination is one of the most important activities of the Christian life. Self-examination is not self-assessment as such. True self-examination is seeing yourself through the eyes of the Holy Spirit. One of the things God most wants to show you is where you have gone wrong. He does this because he wants to save you. So keep short accounts with God. Keep coming back to God to ascertain where you may have gone astray in your thoughts and desires. It is amazing how far we can slide away from God in a short time. Always be wary of yourself in this matter. Let the Holy Spirit do regular ‘check-ups’ on the state of your heart. Our hearts are infected with a perversion of the will, a strange and characteristically human behavioural anomaly that the Bible calls ‘sin’. Sin is a cancer to the soul that must be monitored more closely and more frequently than any physical cancer. You need time for this, time to wrench open those locked doors in the darkest places of your heart. There is no more important investment of time than that which is spent in self-examination. Be open to God’s light in this matter and be honest with yourself.
Commit yourself to regular self-examination through the guidance of God’s Spirit.
Read 2 Corinthians 13
