Souljourn

A honest assessment

Last weekend we discussed that it is very possible for all of us to be deceived as to our true spiritual condition.  We looked at the Laodicean church in Revelations 3, and saw that believers who were once passionately pursuing Jesus (see Colossians 2:1-2; 4:13-16) could over time find themselves in a place of being 'lukewarm' and having a totally incorrect assessment of the condition of their hearts.  

This week I came across some questions that John Wesley created to help people avoid this trap  and maintain a soft, responsive and growing heart before Jesus.  He penned these questions over 200 years ago, and urged that they would be considered daily.  I invite you to look over these questions and then just imagine what might transpire in your spiritual life if you took up this challenge to honestly pose them to yourself everyday.

1. Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I really am? In other words, am I a hypocrite?
2. Am I honest in all my acts and words, or do I exaggerate?
3. Do I confidentially pass on to another what was told to me in confidence?
4. Can I be trusted?
5. Am I a slave to dress, friends, work, or habits?
6. Am I self-conscious, self-pitying, or self-justifying?
7. Did the Bible live in me today?
8. Do I give it time to speak to me everyday?
9. Am I enjoying prayer?
10. When did I last speak to someone else about my faith?
11. Do I pray about the money I spend?
12. Do I get to bed on time and get up on time?
13. Do I disobey God in anything?
14. Do I insist upon doing something about which my conscience is uneasy?
15. Am I defeated in any part of my life?
16. Am I jealous, impure, critical, irritable, touchy, or distrustful?
17. How do I spend my spare time?
18. Am I proud?
19. Do I thank God that I am not as other people, especially as the Pharisees who despised the publican?
20. Is there anyone whom I fear, dislike, disown, criticize, hold a resentment toward or disregard? If so, what am I doing about it?
21. Do I grumble or complain constantly?
22. Is Christ real to me?

 

The need for firewood

I've been thinking about firewood lately.  Not the inanimate kind that is stacked neatly in a woodshed waiting to be used.  The kind that has two legs and a mind of its own.  The kind that decides for itself if it will be placed on the altar and used to maintain, and increase, the warmth and light of the fire.

We are that firewood.  We must make that decision.

Here are some of the nuggets that have contributed to this train of thought. 

• "It is useless to pray for the fire of heaven to descend when the altar is not built and the sacrifice unprepared."   Evan Roberts - Welsh Revivalist 

 

• In Leviticus, the priests are instructed that it is their responsibility to keep the fire going.
• Leviticus 6:12,13 "The fire on the altar must be kept burning; it must not go out. Every morning the priest is to add firewood and arrange the burnt offering on the fire and burn the fat of the fellowship offerings on it.  The fire must be kept burning on the altar continuously; it must not go out."
• God would light the fire (Leviticus 9:23,24) but the responsibility of keeping it going was given to man.

 

• Nehemiah 13:31 "I also made sure that the supply of wood for the altar... was brought at the proper time."
• This is one of the last recorded actions of Nehemiah, to make sure there was wood for the fire on the altar.

The point seems pretty clear for me.  I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.  Without pushing the point too much, if I see you at prayer I'll have a pretty good idea as to the conclusion you've reached.

 

 

Interesting! I'm just glad they don't all have facebook