Photo on garagefly.com
Recently, I had to get my car fixed. In fact, I probably should have fixed it awhile ago because it was making a lot of noise. But you know how it goes – I didn’t have the time and I didn’t have the necessary funds.
When I finally brought my car in to the service center, I was hit with an enormous repair bill. At first, I thought I miss heard the price, but when the reality set in, I realized that this repair was going to cost me a lot of money. The service representative told me that all my brakes pads and rotors needed to be completely replaced. The damage was so great that he was surprised that I didn’t get into an accident.
It is interesting how our spiritual health is very similar.
There are usually a lot of warning signs as we start deteriorating spiritually, but we always rationalize and reason that we don’t have the time or we don’t have the necessary things to address the issue. Therefore, we continue to go through life in a dangerous condition.
I am wondering if there is a systematic way to measure to see how spiritually healthy we are on a regular basis. Maybe we can call it a spiritual check-up.
Roger Williams, who lived in the 17th century wrote, Experiments of Spiritual Life and Health. He wrote this book in 1652 and noted that there were eleven marks of spiritual health when it comes to matters concerning ourselves. They are:
2) Spiritual battles
3) Godly loathing for sin
4) True self-denial
5) Willingness to stay in hard and difficult service
6) Spiritual contentment in God’s will
7) Joy in sorrow
8) Christians weaned from this world’s comforts
9) God glorified in all earthly businesses
10) The true watch of God’s people over their tongue
11) God’s people shun the appearance of sin
If we use these measures, I am wondering how healthy we would be as a Christ-follower. This is a good checklist for us to consider, especially for some of us who are feeling a bit apathetic and just going through the motions of following Christ. It is also good for those of us who are so busy running around and serving God.
As we grow in spiritual health, then other things in our lives will grow. I was reminded (again) that when things are healthy, things will grow. If the people in the church were healthy, then the church will grow – not only in numbers, but in love, in evangelism, in giving, and etc. It is my prayer and hope that God’s people will do whatever it takes to grow spiritually healthy, no matter what the cost because the consequences of not growing healthy is far too devastating and we will end up paying more at the end.