EXAMINE YOUR SELF
By Bisi Adewale
Most Christians are not concerned about their spiritual lives. They eat every day, bath, sleep well, exercise their bodies, and go for medical check-ups, just to keep their bodies in shape.
They take care of their cars and other machinery by servicing them regularly, so that they will not break down unexpectedly. Most Christians are non-chalant about improving and protecting their spiritual lives. This neglect facilitates a deterioration of their spirit man until it is destroyed.
Backsliding does not manifest as sin initially; it often stems from constant neglect of important spiritual values. It is a gradual process that posts its signs early enough. If these signs are not heeded, the obvious fall into sin becomes inevitable.
Let’s analyse some signs:
- Loss of hunger to read the Bible.
- Becoming money-focused and money conscious.
- You easily keep offence in your heart.
- You begin to lose interest in long and fervent prayers.
- Sleeping in the place of prayer.
- Your personal prayer life begins to deteriorate or becomes inconsistent and irregular.
- You cannot pray alone for a long time
- You are plagued with wandering thoughts in the place of prayers.
- You easily get angry.
- You become easily fearful.
- You become worrisome
- You begin to struggle with lust.
- You become critical.
- Your prayer life becomes materialistic and selfish
- Your dislike for church or fellowship begins to grow.
- Your conscience becomes weak.
- You enjoy company of sinners more than company of the children of God.
- You enjoy doing only what is convenient not what is commanded.
- You enjoy watching television than praying.
- Fasting becomes so difficult for you.
- You prefer reading secular books than reading the Bible.
- You hate hearing messages about sin, holiness, second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, righteousness, consecration, etc. You only prefer motivational messages, messages about money, wealth creation, etc. It is not a sin to listen to motivational messages and messages about money, but if that is the only message you prefer and hate messages that teach holiness, then something is wrong with your spiritual life.
- You love worldly films.
- You have becoming a pessimist.
- You confess negatively
- You hate people
- You find it so difficult to forgive others.
- You begin to tell lies, though you do not really like it.
- You begin to enjoy sinful jokes.
- You don’t see anything wrong in what sinners are doing.
- You begin to find it difficult to evangelize.
- Bible begins to look like an ordinary story book to you.
- You are not proud to be seen with the Bible.
- You are totally content with your present state of spiritual life; you don’t see any need to improve.
- You begin to have ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude.
- You become proud and cocky.
- You develop an attraction for unbelievers of the opposite sex.
- You begin to doubt the truth of the Bible.
- You start to desire to sleep with your fiancée or fiancé in courtship.
- You feel your parents are difficult.
- Sin starts lurking around the person like it did to Cain. (Genesis 4:3-7).
- Covetousness and desire to steal.
- You begin to question the word of God
- You easily disobey God.
These are early signs of backsliding. Check your life; if there is any one of them in your life that is a danger signal. If you don’t do anything about it quickly, it has the ability to destroy your spiritual life and destroy you.
© Bisi Adewale
