Ten Questions

"'Many religious people' are always morbidly craving fresh excitement, and they seem to care little what it is if they only get it." J.C. Ryle wrote this in 1879, and it is still very true today.  

This fall, I am teaching a class, 10 Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health (Hoopla - audio,  Hoopla -ebook). The ten questions came from Don Whitney's book by the same title.

Starting on December 10, we will look at one question a week. 

Question 1:  Do You Thirst for God?
Question 2:  Are you governed increasingly by God's Word?
Question 3:  Are you more loving?
Question 4:  Are you more sensitive to God's presence?

Each lesson is an independent lesson.  The class time will include scripture, thoughts about that week's question, prayer time, and heart-felt discussion

Here is the official class description;

In the distractions of daily life, it can be hard to evaluate how we are doing spiritually. But monitoring the pulse of your spiritual health is just as important as monitoring your mental and physical health. This class will focus on asking yourself 10 questions developed from Scripture and praying for one another.   

As part of the introduction this past Sunday, we did a couple of things.

First, we introduced the theme verses, John 11:25, 26. 

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; the one who believes in Me will live, even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

The basic idea was we cannot talk about spiritual health unless we are spiritually alive in Christ. 

Second, we talked about what self-inquiry/self-examination is.  In his book Practical Theology, J.C. Ryle shares ten questions about self-inquiry.  For a free PDF copy of the book go to https://www.monergism.com/practical-religion-ebook

Here are the ten questions followed by five different groups of people who would benefit from asking these questions to themselves.

10 Questions About Self-Inquiry
From Practical Theology by J.C. Ryle

1. Do we ever think about our souls at all?
2. Do we ever do anything about our souls?
3. Are we trying to satisfy our consciences with a mere formal religion?
4. Have we received the forgiveness of our sins?
5. Do we know anything by experience of conversion to God?
6. Do we know anything of practical Christian holiness?
7. Do we know anything of enjoying the means of grace?
8. Do we ever try to do good in the world?
9. Do we know anything of living the life of habitual communion with Christ?
10. Do we know anything of being ready for Christ’s coming?

Consider these questions.

• Is any reader of this paper asleep and utterly thoughtless about religion?
• Is any reader of this paper feeling self-condemned, and that there is no hope for his soul?
• Is any reader of this paper a professing believer in Christ, but a believer without my joy and peace and comfort?
• Is there any reader of this paper a believer oppressed with doubts and fears, on account of his feebleness, infirmity, and sense of sin?
• Is any reader of this paper sometimes downcast by the trial he meets with in the way to heaven, bodily trials, family trials,  trials of circumstance, trials from neighbors, and trials from the world?