Examining Ourselves

How are your relationships these days?
Are they close or distant?
Can they be counted on during challenging times?
Can you trust them?
Can they trust you?

You might be thinking this Encourager is about human relationships, but it is not. We have spent over five months on building our relationship with God through different Biblical prayers this year. So, let's use those same questions and shift them from human relationships to our relationship with God...

How is your relationship with God these days?
Are you close or distant?
Can God be counted on during challenging times?
Can you trust Him?
Can He trust you?

Remember this past Sunday we looked at Jesus' three instructions about prayer...

-Be aware of Public Prayers v Private Prayers. Matt 6:5-6

-Be aware of Rehearsed Prayers v Relational Prayers. Matt 6:7-8

-Be aware of Fire Prayers v Forgiving Prayers. Matt 6:14-15

As we think through our closeness and excitement about Jesus these days, let's have a spiritual mentor from a few hundred years ago encourage us.

George Whitefield was an Anglican Pastor and Evangelist in the 1700s. God used him in wonderful ways. He created the following list of questions to encourage himself to not take God for granted.

George Whitefield’s self-examination prayers
Have I…
(1) Been fervent in private prayer?
(2) Used stated hours of prayer (morning, noon, evening)?
(3) Used prayer every hour (spontaneously)?
(4) After or before every deliberate conversation or action, considered how it might tend to God’s glory
(5) After any pleasure, immediately given thanks?
(6) Planned business for the day?
(7) Been simple (avoid luxury) and recollected (aware of God’s presence) in everything?
(8) Been zealous in undertaking and active in doing what good I could?
(9) Been meek, cheerful, affable in everything I said or did?
(10) Been proud, vain, unchaste, or enviable of others?
(11) Recollected in eating and drinking? Thankful? Temperate in sleep?
(12) Taken time for giving thanks according to William Law’s rules?
(13) Been diligent in studies?
(14) Thought or spoken unkindly of anyone?
(15) Confessed all sins?

Maybe we need to print this list off, carry it with us and look at it throughout the day for awhile.

Seeking to be close and excited about Jesus together,
Pastor Chris