I don’t remember many people who liked taking exams in school. Why don’t we like them? I believe it’s because it is a tool that shows where you are a academically and how much you’ve learned. Imagine if churches gave out tests to determine where you are spiritually seeing where your relationship with God really is. The good news is that they don’t do that. However, the Bible does mention several times that we should examine ourselves to do just that. It’s easy to quickly say that everything is fine. It’s much more difficult to truly scrutinize where you really are. When we’re willing to do that, we’re willing to grow and move closer to God.
Here are some Bible verses that ask you to examine yourself:
1. Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.
II Corinthians 13:5 NKJV
2. But each one must carefully scrutinize his own work [examining his actions, attitudes, and behavior], and then he can have the personal satisfaction and inner joy of doing something commendable without comparing himself to another.
Galatians 6:4 AMP
3. Examine your motives to make sure you’re not showing off when you do your good deeds, only to be admired by others; otherwise, you will lose the reward of your heavenly Father.
Matthew 6:1 TPT
4. But if we would examine ourselves, we would not be judged by God in this way.
1 Corinthians 11:31 NLT
5. Let us search out and examine our ways, And turn back to the Lord; Let us lift our hearts and hands To God in heaven.
Lamentations 3:40-41 NKJV
Here’s an exam I use to give me a snapshot of where I am in the different areas of my spiritual growth. Click here.
Photo by Михаил Секацкий on Unsplash
Devotions by Chris Hendrix 