Have you ever had something wrong with you like physically and didn’t really want to go to the doctor, so you Googled your symptoms? If you haven’t, don’t do it! It turns out that Google decided I had a terminal ailment and I only had a few months to live. I started thinking about planning for the end of my life; making a will, writing letters to my loved ones, planning my funeral, etc.
Not long after that, I went to the doctor for an annual checkup and told him what was wrong. He determined that I was not going to die, but that I was just getting older and had a common ailment called Sciatica, which caused some pain in my hip and leg. Stupid Google.
It turns out it was caused by an injury I had some years ago trying to prove to my youth group that I could do everything that they could and my body would hold up to it. (Long story that involves a Slip-n-Slide, baby shampoo and some plastic army men).
It’s rarely a good idea to examine yourself when it comes to physical ailments, but the Bible tells us something different about our spiritual ailments.
2 Corinthians 13:5 tells us this. “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you– unless indeed you fail the test?”
In other words, stop and take an inventory of your relationship with God. Is it exactly what you want it to be? Is it what God wants it to be? Are you hungry for more? What can you do to make it what you want it to be? I mean, if there is no fruit showing, then it is not what God intended it to be.
Those are all test questions which you have to ask yourself and pass in order to have the relationship with God that you want.
What makes that friend qualified? Someone who knows the Word of God and knows what the answers to the test questions are. Someone who cares enough about you to tell you when you are changing spiritually. Someone who trusts you to tell them the same things. You need someone who encourages you to be better in Christ and that you can encourage them too.
As Proverbs 27:17 says “As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.”
Examine yourself, make changes, and find someone who will sharpen you!
IT’S TEST TIME!
higley rides again 