THE NEED FOR SELF EXAMINATION

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord. Let us lift up our hearts and our hands to God in heaven, and say:

“We have sinned and rebelled and You have not forgiven.”

Lamentations 3:40-42

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Here’s a truth about our humanity that gets us in trouble more often than not:

It’s much easier to look outside of oneself than inside.

It’s true, right?

Think about how quick people are to pass judgment or criticize others and yet so slow to see their own flaws. It happens all the time.

So what does the Bible have to say on this matter? We find out in today’s scripture passage from the 3 rd chapter of Lamentations and we had better be paying close attention because when it comes right down to it, we need to know what God expects to ensure we live in a way that is pleasing in His sight.

Look at these words and see how God shows us the need for self examination:

Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord. Let us lift up our hearts and our hands to God in heaven, and say:

“We have sinned and rebelled and You have not forgiven.”  Lamentations 3:40-42

Note here that we aren’t to stand before someone else and let them analyze the good and bad in us. Rather, we are called to examine ourselves, looking in the mirror and scrutinizing our ways.

What is the standard from which we are to be measuring our behavior?

It’s the Holy Bible which gives us everything we need to know about living life in the way God wants us to live. We test our actions, our words, and our thoughts against the direction and guidance the Father provides as well as the life His Son Jesus lived. For in Jesus, we see the only person who ever lived perfectly and thus the only person who is a perfect role model for us to follow.

So what happens when we do this, when we self examine the way we are living against the scriptures and the life of Jesus?

Well, we should see that we woefully fall short of the mark in being the people the Lord wants us to be, a realization that will lead us to react in the way our devotional passage states:

Let us lift up our hearts and our hands to God in heaven, and say: “We have sinned and rebelled and You have not forgiven.”

You see, proper self examination will always take us to the place where we see ourselves as the problem in the way we relate to God. It takes us to a place of confession and then repentance and then a commitment to change.

That’s the way it happened with the Old Testament Israelites who examined themselves during their seventy year exile, saw they were the root cause of God having to send judgment, repented of their sin and rebellion, and then made a commitment to renew their relationship with God which they did after they returned to their homeland (read the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah for the full account of this happening).

Today, we get the same opportunity to look inward, using the word of God and the life of Jesus to measure where we stand before the Lord God Almighty, our Maker and Master. When we do it, I guarantee that we will see just how much we are falling short of God’s will and way, realizing that we are provoking God to judgment through our sins before repenting of those sins, and then making a  renewed commitment to allow the Lord to reform us from the inside out.

In other words, we recognize by self examination that the only hope for us to live in a way that is pleasing to the Lord is to allow Him to send His Spirit inside us so that all the only things we do will be those things that He leads us to do.

Amen

In Christ,

Mark
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