About 4 minutes to read
Why Examine Yourself
Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?
2 Corinthians 13:5 (KJV)
Scripture commands it in two places especially. Paul tells the church to examine whether they are in the faith, and he tells every communicant to examine himself before he eats of the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 11:28). The aim is not to torment yourself. It is to find sin and kill it, to find grace and thank God for it, and to come to Christ again.
Look at Christ First
Do not start by grading yourself. Start with the promise. God has promised everlasting life to everyone who believes on the Son (John 3:36). Your standing rests on Christ and what he finished, not on how the examination turns out.
Then look inward with an honest eye. The Confession grounds assurance on three things, the truth of God’s promises of salvation, the inward evidence of the graces those promises are made to, and the witness of the Spirit of adoption with our spirits (WCF 18.2). Begin with the promises. If you begin with yourself, you will find a reason to doubt everything.
Remember too that saving faith and the assurance of it are not the same thing. A true believer may wait long and fight hard before he is sure, and lack of assurance does not prove that faith is absent (WCF 18.3). You are saved by trusting Christ, not by feeling sure that you trust him. Self-examination is a duty, but its aim is to send you back to Christ, not to keep you staring at yourself.
Questions to Ask
The Larger Catechism lists what to examine before the Lord’s Supper (Q&A 171). It makes a good set of questions for any day.
- Am I in Christ? Am I trusting him alone, and not my own goodness, my church membership, or a prayer I once prayed?
- What are my sins and my needs? Name them. Where have I sinned in thought, word, and deed today?
- Do I know the truth? Do I understand the gospel well enough to say it plainly?
- Is there repentance? Do I hate my sin because it is sin, and not only because of what it costs me? Am I turning from it?
- Do I love God and his people? Do I love the brethren, and am I kind to all men?
- Have I forgiven those who wronged me? Is there a grudge I am keeping?
- Do I want Christ? Is there a desire for him, and for more of him?
- Am I obeying? Is there new obedience, even weak and uneven, that was not there before?
The Ten Commandments are the best mirror for the second question. Go through them one at a time. The Ten Commandments for a Believer sets out what each one requires and forbids.
How to Do It
- Pray first. Search me, O God, and know my heart (Psalm 139:23). Ask God to show you what you would rather not see.
- Be specific. Name the sin, the time, and the person. Vague confession leads to vague repentance (WCF 15.5).
- Keep it short each day. A few minutes at night is enough. Look back over the day, confess, give thanks, and go to bed.
- Go deeper before the Lord’s Supper. Take longer in the days before communion. The Catechism directs communicants to prepare themselves before they come (Q&A 171).
- Make it right. If you wronged someone, confess it to them and repair what you can (Matthew 5:23-24).
- End at the cross. Every examination should end with Christ freely offered and freely received. If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father (1 John 2:1).
Two Cautions
Do not skip it. A man who never looks at himself can live for years in a sin he would see in a minute if he looked. The Puritan John Owen warned that a man who finds no fight in himself against his sin is at peace with it, not dying to it. If You Have Made Peace With It speaks to that man.
Do not drown in it. Some believers turn self-examination into an endless loop of checking whether they really meant it. If that is you, keep the searching short and the looking to Christ long. Read Am I Really His, and if the same thoughts keep coming whether you want them or not, read thoughts you would never choose. Tell your elders too.