Robert Davenport
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| Bell Road Encourager | |||||||||||||
| Volume 1, Issue 1 January 30, 2005 | |||||||||||||
| "Examine Yourselves" | |||||||||||||
| When a doctor examines a person, it is to see whether or not that person is in good physical health. The Bible teaches that we are to be spiritual doctors and that we are to examine our spiritual body; that is, our soul. Paul exhorted the Corinthian Christians to do so in 2 Corinthians 13:5: "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?" We are to constantly guard and protect our spiritual body, just like we do our physical body. | |||||||||||||
| We know that the physical body deteriorates when we fail to take care of it. By the same token, our spiritual body begins to deteriorate when we allow it to become infested with sin. We cannot glorify God in our spirit it is diseased with sin. The only medicine that can cure a diseased spiritual body is the word of God, which is "the power of God unto salvation" (Romans 1:16) and is able to save our souls (James 1:21), if we will receive it. | |||||||||||||
| The heart is the key to all physical human existence. It is the physical organ that supplies the body with the oxygen needed to survive and function properly. Likewise, the heart is the source of the Christians life, because "out of the heart are the issues of life" (Proverbs 4:23). The Christians "heart" is the organ that determines whether or not he or she is spiritually healthy. A Christians spiritual health or the lack of it is displayed in his/her heart (Matthew 12:34; 15:19). | |||||||||||||
| The Bible emphasizes the importance of a Christian guarding his/her heart because the devil is always seeking to weaken and destroy it (I Peter 5:8). Also, we must take care of our spiritual body because we cannot hide our spiritual condition from God (Hebrews 4:12-13; Galatians 6:7). If our hearts are not fully committed to God, then our spiritual health will gradually deteriorate to the point that we will die spiritually and eternally. | |||||||||||||
| If we want to live a long physical life upon this earth, then we have to have periodic physical examinations to determine our condition. Also, if we want to go to heaven, then we must make daily examinations of our own lives to determine whether we are truly "in the faith". A few minutes of self-examination every day could determine whether we grow spiritually and where we eventually spend eternity. Let us all make time everyday for those soul-saving examinations! Robert Davenport |
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