Fred Smith was in executive positions for 65 years with General Shoe Corporation, William Powell Valve, Gruen Watch, and then with his own company. As President of Fred Smith Associates, a management consulting firm, his clients included Mobil Oil, Caterpillar and many others. Mr. Smith served on the boards of Christian organizations like Christianity Today, Youth for Christ, and many others. His lifetime friends included Billy Graham, Haddon Robinson, Zig Ziglar, Ken Blanchard, and dozens more. Although Fred Smith has gone to be with the Lord now, you can get weekly emails from his archives at
www.breakfastwithfred.com.
Several years ago, Fred Smith had an article in Leadership Journal. It is one of my gems that I get out every so often to check how I am doing in my walk with Christ.
Folks, if we want to have and maintain a close walk with God, it is wise to conduct a spiritual audit of our lives. Just as your body needs a check-up with blood tests and other health appraisal tools, you need a tool to find out where you are spiritually.
Fred Smith’s article gives you a checklist that you might want to use. Over the last 12 years, I have reworked, refined, and rephrased his list of 12 questions and expanded it to 15. It is a good checklist of things to assess how your walk with Christ is going. Ask yourself:
1. Am I content with who I am becoming? Am I satisfied with who I will be? Every day do I get one day closer to who I believe God wants me to be?
2. Am I becoming less religious and more spiritual? Am I less interested in the ritual and rules and more interested in a relationship with God and the grace He gives? Am I stuck on the content of Scripture or have I moved onto striving to live the Bible?
3. Do others see God working in me? Do my friends, family, and others close to me see me as a person who is genuinely walking with God? Do they see evidence of my walk in the Spirit? Can they readily see the “Fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22-23) in my life? Is there any hint of the “fruit of the flesh” (Galatians 5:19-21) in my life? What needs to be confessed and repented?
4. Am I enjoying freshness in my walk with God? Are there daily insights and new joys in my devotional and spiritual life that God gives me? In John 7:38, Jesus said: “Whoever believes in me … streams of living water will flow from within him.”. Instead of a stagnancy of faith and heart, is there freshness that comes from the flow of Jesus and the influence of the Holy Spirit in my life?
5. Do I have a quiet center to my life? Psalm 119:165 says: “Great peace have they who love Your law.” Is there commotion and chaos or contentment and calmness in my inner life? Am I afraid, consumed by the news, and dismayed? Do I have anger, stress, anxiety, bitterness, revenge, and other behaviors that are blocking God’s peace from quieting my heart and life?
6. Am I functioning in my unique ministry? Am I serving in the areas of my spiritual gifts with joy? Am I experiencing joy in my ministries of service to the Lord? Am I telling my family, my friends, my neighbors, and my acquaintances about the Lord? Is there is inner turmoil, driven-ness to succeed, or territoriality? If there is, I am not in the will of God.
7. Is my prayer life improving? How much of my prayers are devoted to asking for things and how often do I simply ask God for guidance and rely on His direction. Is praise and gratitude an integral part of my prayers. Am I imposing my will on God or am I seeking His will each day of my life? Do I practice God’s presence through the day?
8. Am I regular in my worship experiences? This is a hard one to answer in this time of Covid. But here goes: Am I faithful or sporadic in my public and private worship of God? Is there a real and growing sense of awe as a worshipper of God? (I know I need an audit when God does not impress me anymore). Do you watch the on-line messages of East Hills and other churches? Do you join in and sing the songs of worship?
9. Am I genuinely a humble person? Do I feel the need to tell others about my accomplishments or possessions? Do I have the need to self-aggrandize, or to recite my successes? Do I criticize or bash others? Do I need to seek the Lord’s help in this area?
10. Am I in the Bible every day? Am I reading, studying, meditating upon, and applying the Bible? It is a part of the healthy diet of a spiritual person to be in the Word. What has God’s Word said to me lately? From personal experience I know that if you are not in the Word every day, you are going to drift away from the Lord!
11. Can I point to current areas that Christ is transforming in my life? There should be some specific areas to which I can point where the Lord is changing my allegiances and behaviors to be more Christ-likeness. Is obedience and surrender to God built into my lifestyle, mind, and values? Obedience largely determines my relationship with Christ following the new birth.
12. Am I more genuine in my love for others? Am I kind, patient, gracious, and forgiving with those around me? Do I listen to others and really care about their needs and cares? Am I harsh and terse or am I kind and forbearing in love?
13. What influence is my life having on others? Am I bringing people closer to God or to the world? Who are the people I am mentoring and influencing? How are their walks with Christ being enhanced because of my influence?
14. Do I have joy? If I am walking with God, joy will characterize my attitudes, countenance, and speech. Criticism, complaining, and ingratitude have no place in a mature Christian’s life. Is there any of that in my life?
15. Do you have self-control? Are there areas of my life that are undisciplined? Do you have addictions and excesses that are driving your life instead of the Lord? Are there hidden areas of un-confessed sin that no one knows about?
These questions are a great way to evaluate your spiritual maturity and ascertain whether you are making progress with Christ. If you are like me, you have a long list of things that need to be worked through. As a sinner who is striving to live in the heavenly realms, I can tell you that this list gets longer the more honest and introspective I become. And here are some suggestions on what to do with what you find out about yourself:
First, you need to confess your sin. When David got his life straight with God, he said: “Then I acknowledged my sin to You and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD"— and You forgave the guilt of my sin.” (Psalm 32:4). Like most Christians, I struggle with my sin nature. So I have to practice confession many times a day. I have learned that confession is the way to a deeper walk with God. When I live in complete honesty before God, He comes in greater fullness into my life. You need to do the same. Confession of sin will bring you more joy, peace, and so much more!
Second, you need to repent. Paul told the church at Corinth: “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret …” (2 Corinthians 7:10). Once you have confessed your sin, find out what changes God would have you make. Daily Bible study, prayer, and meditation will help you set some benchmarks of where you believe God wants your life to move. Your repentance will allow God to tell you the next steps of what He wants to be renovated in your life.
Third, you need to seek help. The Christian faith is not solitary. Christianity is lived in the context of fellowship and community. Jesus’ disciples were continually with the Lord. He commanded his disciples to go two by two. Paul was never without the companionship of Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, Luke or someone else. James 5:16, 19, 20 say: “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed ... if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.” Be accountable to other Christians. Have spiritual partners to help you and for you to help them. Help each other stay on the path. Proverbs 27:17 says: “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”
Lastly, you need to live in God’s grace. Too many people wallow in the guilt of things undone and things done in the past. We will never attain sinless perfection. Sure, we should aim for complete righteousness (2 Corinthians 13:11), striving to please the Lord and honor Him in all we say and do. But when we fall short, we should drop to our knees to rely on the grace and mercy of God. We can fully trust in the wonderful grace of Jesus that takes away all our sin. Remember how the Apostle Paul agonized about the carnality and sin in his life? He wrote: “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 7:24-8:2). Once we have done our spiritual audit and done our best to please the Lord, the next step is to live in the grace and mercy of God.
It is not enough to be a good theologian or a Bible knowledge expert. Remember the Pharisees were the best in those categories. You and I have to be people who completely live for God and are maturing in our attitudes, our behavior, our service, our obedience, and our commitment to the Lord Jesus. Here is what the Bible says:
Colossians 2:6-7: “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”
James 2:17: “… faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”
1 John 2:6: “Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did.”
Hebrews 5:14 says: “But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.”
As we go through this Covid time and East Hills finishes this pastoral transition, this would be a good time for all of us to renew, rejuvenate, and restore our walk with Christ. You see, it is not really about who is the pastor of East Hills is. The truth is: a great, growing, and godly church is less about having the right pastor and more about being right with God! God can’t bless our church or our lives if we are not completely yielding our lives to Christ in deeper fuller ways!! So, each of us has to follow God and obey Him as we walk with Him daily in our pilgrimage of faith. As one of my favorite Plattitudes says: “the results begin when you do!”
I love being your pastor!
Pastor Mark Platt
