When your car’s “check engine” light comes on, the first thing the mechanic will probably do is run a diagnostic scan. He’ll connect his own computer to your car’s computer, read the error code, then diagnose the problem and find a solution.

But how do we measure our spiritual health? Are there any diagnostic tools to determine if we are “fully pleasing the Lord, bearing fruit in every good work” (Col. 1:10)?

In Psalm 139, David hints at a diagnostic method of spiritual growth. He invites the Lord, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” It’s as though David is driving his soul into the repair bay and asking God for a full 40-point inspection and report. I wonder why we don’t pray this more. Could it be we’re afraid of what God will find?

Toward the end of 2 Corinthians, Paul shares some areas of deep concern over the church’s behavior (12:20-21). He suggests that time is running out, and if they don’t change quickly, “you may find me not as you wish” (12:20). He will have no choice but to “mourn over them” (12:21), “not sparing them” (13:2), but to “be severe in my use of the authority that the Lord has given me” (13:10). Up to now, Paul had been incredibly patient with the church. Now his patience is wearing thin. If things don’t improve quickly, he will have no choice but to exercise the rod of discipline (cf. 1 Cor. 4:21).

Discipline is one tool God has given parents in the home and leaders in a church to deal with folly and insubordination. It should not be our first recourse, but sometimes it is the right tool for the right job.

A much-preferred tool in spiritual growth is self-examination. If we would all engage in more regular self-examination, sin would not get out of hand, and spiritual leaders would not have to resort to the heavy hand of discipline.

In 2 Corinthians 13, Paul encourages the church to “examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?” (2 Cor. 13:5). The assumption is that if they would only conduct a thorough self-examination, there would be no need for Paul to resort to stricter forms of discipline when he arrives.

What does it mean to “examine yourselves”? It means to do a careful, in-depth examination. As the old saying goes, to “leave no stone unturned.” You poke around in every nook and cranny of the heart for signs of temptation, pride, bitterness, doubt, and unconfessed sin. Charles Spurgeon compared it to taking a journey through the soul:

“I find in the original, it has this meaning: ‘Go right through yourselves.’ As a traveler, if he has to write a book upon a country, is not content to go round its borders merely, but goes, as it were, from Dan to Beersheba, right through the country. He climbs the hill top, where he bathes his forehead in the sunshine: he goes down into the deep valleys, where he can only see the blue sky like a strip between the lofty summits of the mountains. He is not content to gaze upon the broad river unless he trace it to the spring whence it rises. He will not be satisfied with viewing the products of the surface of the earth, but he must discover the minerals that lie within its bowels.

Now, do the same with your heart. ‘Examine yourselves.’ Go right through yourselves from the beginning to the end. Stand not only on the mountains of your public character, but go into the deep valleys of your private life. Be not content to sail on the broad river of your outward actions, but go follow back the narrow nil till you discover your secret motive. Look not only at your performance, which is but the product of the soil, but dig into your heart and examine the vital principle.

‘Examine yourselves.’ This is a very big word-a word that needs thinking over; and I am afraid there be very few, if any of us, who ever come up to the full weight of this solemn exhortation- ‘Examine yourselves.’

This could be as simple as reading through Galatians 5 and taking a catalog of the “deeds of the flesh” and “fruit of the spirit,” rating yourself in each area and choosing one or two where you need to repent and implement change. Or maybe you need to conduct a more thorough analysis. Why not grab a journal and work through a series of questions?

Jonathan Edwards, a New England pastor who was instrumental in the First Great Awakening, published a work in 1733 called The Necessity of Self-Examination. From it, we glean a helpful list of self-examination questions. Try praying and then using some of these in a season of heart searching:

• Is it important for me to know whether or not I live in a state of sin?
• Do I live in the gratification of some lust, either in thought or in deed?
• Am I sinning against the light of my conscience in some way, by going on in known sins?
• Have I invented ways of justifying my sinful practices, calling them by more virtuous titles, or rationalizing them in any way?
• Do I regularly ask friends and loved ones to show me the faults that I cannot see in myself?
• Do I allow myself to commit some sin because it is not widely condemned among my fellow-man, or because I see it done by my peers?
• Do I pick and choose which parts of my duty I will perform, neglecting those which are more distasteful to me?
• Do I set aside time regularly to read and meditate on the Word of God?
• Am I doing anything which might be considered a ‘grey area’; things that godly brethren would view as a way of sin?
• Do I live in any way that I might regret when I lie upon my death-bed?
• Is there anything I am doing that I would not want to be caught doing if Christ were to return that moment, or I should be taken out of this world and into eternity?

Most of us are not used to asking these kinds of questions. Frankly, they make us uncomfortable. But by God’s grace, we should learn to ask them with a degree of regularity. Another great preacher, George Whitefield, developed a similar line of questions. He had the habit of asking them at the end of each day:

• Have I been fervent in prayer?
• After or before every deliberate conversation or action, have I considered how it might tend to God’s glory?
• After any pleasure, have I immediately given thanks?
• Have I planned business for the day?
• Have I been meek, cheerful, affable [pleasant, friendly] in everything I said or did?
• Have I been proud, vain, unchaste, or enviable of others?
• Have I been recollected [composed, self-disciplined] in eating and drinking? Thankful? Temperate in sleep?
• Have I thought or spoken unkindly of anyone?
• Have I confessed all sins?

One last resource. For those who serve as pastors and elders, I would recommend the “Pastor’s Self-Evaluation Questionnaire” developed by David Powlison and Tim Keller. You can download it for free here.

May God help us to grow in healthy forms of introspection, that we would increase in holiness and fruitfulness to the glory of God.