Monday, September 02, 2019
Self-testing
2 Corinthians 13:5
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.
If you are like me, at that stage of life where just staying alive and well requires greater effort and attention, then you are probably self-testing. I am self-testing two chronic conditions, my blood glucose and my blood pressure. So, every morning I am supposed to prick one of my fingertips to get a drop of blood on to a test strip to get a reading of my blood glucose level. Every morning I also wrap the cuff of a sphygmomanometer around my arm to be inflated with air to get a blood pressure reading.
Self-testing for blood glucose and blood pressure are now very common, and these days people are being encouraged to self-test for many other conditions. For example, women are being taught to self-test their breasts for lumps that might be indictive of breast cancer. Likewise, men are being taught to self-test their testicles for early signs of testicular cancer.
Self-testing is now a critical component of overall health care and a powerful tool for fighting the spread of diseases and epidemics including HIV. Through self-testing we can prevent, diagnose, monitor and manage many conditions without going to a healthcare professional or institution. Self-testing allows us to reduce the pressure and costs on healthcare systems, reduces the number of visits to facilities and the number of engagements required from healthcare professionals. It fits into people schedules and convenience. And new technologies allow for reporting the results to professionals and facilities. Overall health should improve as more people self-test and respond appropriately to the results of these tests.
While self-testing is growing as a means to manage our overall physical health, the Apostle Paul, long ago, urged self-testing as a means of determining our spiritual health and managing it based on what we find. In our key verse today, Paul said that a self-test could tell us if we are really in the faith. A spiritual self-test would tell us if Jesus Christ is really in us.
Paul, of course, had a context. The Christians at Corinth were challenging his authority and he wanted two things to happen. One, for them to really determine if they were living according to the things they professed, and two, to apply to their own lives the standard they wanted to apply to his and others.
The Apostle John also addressed this matter of self-testing in his pastoral letter to the church. In 1 John 3:3-6 he wrote, “It is only when we obey God’s laws that we can be quite sure that we really know him. The man who claims to know God but does not obey his laws is not only a liar but lives in self-delusion. In practice, the more a man learns to obey God’s laws the more truly and fully does he express his love for him. Obedience is the test of whether we really live “in God” or not. The life of a man who professes to be living in God must bear the stamp of Christ.” J.B. Phillips New Testament (PHILLIPS)
In other words, the Apostle John here spells out the test and implies that we should be able to test ourselves and know where we stand. The importance of this self-test, in Apostle John’s rendering, is that we would otherwise be living in “self-delusion.”
Self-testing, like we said above, is for diagnosis and treatment. A condition detected is a condition to be addressed by the recommended and available treatments. For the Apostle John, the self-test is critical in determining our standing before God. Earlier in this very letter he had insisted on the same matter of self-delusion, 1 John 1:8, “If we refuse to admit that we are sinners, then we live in a world of illusion and truth becomes a stranger to us.” The recommended treatment is confession for forgiveness and cleansing as he stated in the next verse, 1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” New International Version (NIV).
In the Old Testament there are also examples of self-testing. One that is very familiar, because we sing it as well as read it, is from the Psalmist David in Psalm 139, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.”
This idea of self-testing for the diagnosis and treatment of our spiritual condition is consistent in the writings of the Apostle Paul. In a very familiar passage in the Letter to the Galatians he wrote, “I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” Galatians 5:16. He goes on to list those signs and symptoms, if you like, of the lust of the flesh, a sweeping list that starts with sexual probity and then gets down to character and conduct. That is then followed by a list of the signs of good spiritual health, that we well know as the “fruit of the Spirit.”
The real idea in this Galatians passage is that we should examine ourselves and if we diagnose this troubling spiritual condition, we must take quick action to restore, or establish, good spiritual health. “those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Galatians 5:24
Think on these things:
- Are you participating in the management of your overall physical health by self-testing for any conditions to which you might be predisposed?
- Do you take any time to self-test spiritually based on the Word of God and the teaching you receive?
- Knowing your spiritual history, make a list of the things you should self-test for in your life
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that the Holy Spirit would help us to self-test and reveal to us our true spiritual condition.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex
