New songs for modern missional worship, rich in Christian teaching and contextualized in modern culture. Contemporary hymns, psalms, songs of lament and praise written by members of the Louisville, KY-based Sojourn Community.
In the grip of a snow storm, we canceled our four Sunday worship services at Sojourn this week. Pastor-Elder Chad Lewis, who sends out discussion questions based on the weekly sermon for our community groups to share with each other, substituted this excerpt in place of questions, since we weren’t able to hear the planned sermon for this week.
These questions, very apt and challenging, come from Donald Whitney’s Ten Questions To Diagnose Your Spiritual Health.
“We all are at different legs of our spiritual journey. It is obvious from God’s Word that God is doing a work in His children’s life. He disciplines those He loves. However, we have a part to play as well. Are you creating space in your life for God’s grace to work in your heart and mind? Are you spiritually healthy, or just spiritually busy? Many Christians equate being busy with church stuff to being spiritually healthy. However, a person can be as busy as a bee and never grow past Christian infancy.
A professor wrote the following ten questions … designed to help assess a person’s spiritual health. Walk through these questions and be quick to remember that these questions are not meant to drive you to despair - they are meant to drive you to God. No matter where you are in your Christian life, there is always more. We will never achieve some status where we are not in need. We will always need God and we will always be learning. By God’s grace, the Gospel will always be transforming our lives. So with that said, let’s begin… (THESE QUESTIONS COULD BE ASKED EACH YEAR FOR REFLECTION)”
Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health
1. Do you thirst for God?
What do you run to instead of God to fill your longings?
How can you grow in hunger and thirst for God?
2. Are you governed increasingly by God’s Word?
Do you love God’s Word? Do you long to obey what God says?
How can you foster love for God’s Word in your life?
3. Are you more loving?
Have you grown in love in the past years of your Christian life?
How would you like to grow in love in the next year?
4. Are you more sensitive to God’s presence?
Describe how you listen for God’s gentle voice through His Word or in your spirit.
How have you grown in sensitivity to God’s presence and work in your life?
5. Do you have a growing concern for the spiritual and temporal needs of others?
Who (besides your family) is in your life right now that you are taking care of spiritually or physically?
6. Do you delight in the Bride of Christ?
Are you bitter or angry at Jesus’ church?
How are you growing in love and delight for Jesus’ church?
7. Are the spiritual disciplines increasingly important to you?
How important do you see the spiritual disciplines as being in your life right now?
8. Do you still grieve over sin?
When is the last time that you were broken over your own sinfulness?
9. Are you quicker to forgive?
Are you still quick to hold grudges?
How do you need to grow in forgiveness?
10. Do you long for heaven and to be with Jesus?
How often do you meditate on heaven and the promises that will be reality to us when we pass from this life to the next?
Do you get excited about heaven?
What about heaven do you long for?
Read Philippians 1:19-26: How do you long to grow in what Paul is talking about in these verses?
1:19 for I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. 20 I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. 21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22 If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! 23 I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; 24 but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. 25 Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, 26 so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me.