This is a continuation of last week’s Bible Drill on Self-Examination. Today we will examine our time, talents and money; our responsibility to the gospel; our responsibility to others; our estimation of self; our family relationships; our attitudes toward worldliness; and our enemy.
Your Time, Talents and Money
Still thinking of the commandment of God to love Him with “your all,” have you robbed God of your all by withholding from Him your time, your talents, or your money” (See Luke 12:48b; Heb. 13:16; 2 Cor. 8:14; Eph. 5:15-17.)
* Since every good and perfect gift comes from the Father, what do you have that you can boast about?
* Are you grateful for what you have?
* Do you offer praise to God and give thanks for what He has given to you?
* Are you a good steward of all that God has given to you?” (1 Cor. 4:2)
* In making plans, do you consider what would please God?
* Is your behavior evidence of the fact that you love Him with all of your soul?
* Have you denied yourself and taken up on your cross? (Matt. 16:24-28; 2 Cor. 5:13)
* Have you chosen to follow Christ even when it’s inconvenient, costly or painful?
Power of the Gospel and Your Responsibility
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes… (Rom. 1:16)
* Have you truly believe the gospel – that Jesus Christ died for your sins and was raised again for your justification?
* Do you believe that Jesus is God and has the right to rule your life?
* Jesus Christ came to seek and save the lost, and now that He has returned to the Father, He has commissioned us to carry on His work (John 17:18; Acts. 1:8). Are you carrying it on?
* Are you sharing the gospel? If not, then what is keeping you from sharing?
Your Responsibility to Others
After loving God, the second greatest commandment is to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark. 12:31).
* Are you seeking to love others as Christ loved you?
* Are there people of any race, socioeconomic status, gender, or sexual orientation that you refuse to love?
* Do you love and pray for your enemies? (Matt. 5:44-48)
* Do you know of anyone who has something against you? If so, have you sought reconciliation with them? (Matt. 5:23-24)
* Have you extended forgiveness to those who have hurt you? (Matt. 6:12-15; Col 3:12-13)
* With whose interests are you most concerned – yours or others?
* Do you indulge in idle talk or gossip about others?
* Do you call people names or expose their faults, even in jest?
* Do you try to hurt others with your words? (Eph. 4:32-32)
* Do you pray for or criticize your brothers and sisters in Christ? (Eph. 6:18; 1 Pet. 4:8)
* Do humility, gentleness, patience, and forbearance characterize your walk and behavior toward others? (Eph. 4:1-2)
* Are you regularly assembling with believers for prayer and fellowship?
* Do you submit to your leaders? (Heb. 13:17)
* Do you have “bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart”? (James 3:14)
* Do you lie to others? (Col. 3:9)
* Do you steal? (Eph. 4:28) Do you take things home from work that aren’t yours? Do you rob your employer of work time by attending to personal business on company time?
* Is your life characterized by complaining when things disappoint you or you don’t get your way? Do you disobey Phil. 2:14-15?
* In James 2:1-9 God tells us that Christians are not to show personal favoritism to others based on their status in life or their wealth. Are you guilty of breaking this command?
Self
Whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. (Matt. 20:26-27)
* Are you self-centered?
* Do you seek to draw attention to yourself?
* Do you have to have recognition for the things you do? (Luke 14:11)
* Do you want Jesus to increase while you decrease? (John 3:30)
* Do you think more highly of yourself than you ought to think? (Rom. 12:3)
* Are you proud?
* Do you brag about yourself and about your personal accomplishments?
Family
Husbands
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her…In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. (Eph. 5:25, 28a)
* Do you love your wife with the love that God has for you? (Eph. 5:25-29) Do you love her as you love your own body? Do you nourish and cherish her? Do you love her unconditionally? When was the last time you told her that you love her?
* Have you diligently sought to understand your wife and to listen to and hear what she is trying to say to you?
* Has she asked you to talk to her more? Have you done it?
* How important to you is your wife’s welfare as a person?
* Do you pray with your wife? (1 Pet. 3:7)
* Do you give your wife honor?
* Are you harsh or embittered against your wife?
Wives
Wives, submit [be subject, NASB] to your husband’s as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is head of the church, His body, of which He is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. (Eph. 5:22-24, NIV)
The submission God calls wives to has nothing to do with talent, ability or intelligence, nor is the wife’s role inferior to a superior. Rather, it is a “submission of design and order manifested in love’s obedience to God’s wisdom and sovereign will (Arthur, “Sermon on the Mount”). The husband is not commanded to make the wife be subject. Submission is a choice on the woman’s part – a choice to obey or disobey God (Eph. 5:22, Col 3:18).
* Are you subject or submissive to your husband as is fitting in the Lord?
* Do you respect your husband as God has asked you to do?
Single women are to submit first and foremost to God in all other relationships.
* As a woman, are you going to listen to God’s call to submission or to the world’s definition? Whom are you going to obey?
Children
* Do you fail to honor your father and mother by giving them the respect and obedience that is theirs because God says so (Prov. 6:20-23)?
* Have you obeyed your parents and done what they have taught you, providing, of course, it did not go against Scripture nor against God’s definite will for your life?
* As adults, do you seek godly counsel from your parents when appropriate?
Parenthood
* In light of Deut. 6:6-9 and Eph. 6:4, are you bringing your children up in the teaching and discipline of the Lord?
* Do you spend enough time with your children to truly instruct them?
* Are you guilty of dealing with your children in a wrong way, of dealing with them in such a way as to exasperate them or to provoke them to anger?
* Do you frustrate your children: with your inconsistency? by your failure to consider their feelings? by being too busy to listen? by comparing them to others? by trying to make them what you want them to be rather than developing them according to their personality or talents? by making promises and failing to meet them? by failing to meet their needs for affection? by expecting too much of them for their maturity level?
Worldliness
Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God abides forever. (1 John 2:15-17)
* Are you guilty of materialism or sensualism?
* Are you guilty of egotism? (i.e., inflating your own reputation or showing your superiority or importance in any way, even in spiritual things)
* Have you allowed the world to squeeze you into its mold in deed, in word, or in thought in ways that are contrary to the truths of God’s Word?
* Are your behavior and your value system determined by the world or by the Word of God?
* Can people see a difference in the way you live and the way the world lives?
* Does the way you live act as a deterrent to corruption?
Your Enemy
* Have you given Satan authority over any area of your life?
* Have your participated in any of the following occult practices? (amulets, astrology, carved images, clairvoyance, fortune-telling, horoscopes, Kabala, mediums, mind or thought control, New Age practices, Ouija boards, palm reading, psychic healing/powers, reincarnation, séances, spirit guides, sorcery, superstition, tarot cards, witchcraft)
If you are like me, thinking about these questions and allowing the Holy Spirit to bring to light those areas where I have failed to bring God glory is convicting. However, praise God for hearing our confession, emboldening us to repent, and offering His forgiveness for the sins we have committed! I pray that having gone through this exercise, you are walking in the freedom that comes from being right with God and restored to complete fellowship with Him.
May God bless you as you celebrate your freedom through serving a Risen Savior!
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The owner sat on this property for 54 years and although they will still make money on the sale, they would have made much more if the property came on the market say 2 years ago. Houses similar to this were selling for 400- 500k back in the early 2000…
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April 18th, 2008