My wife sent me to the store recently to get a few things. On her list was medicated body powder and sugar-free vanilla Jello pudding.
I was so proud of myself when I got home, and I read the list that she’d given me back to her, presenting each product. When the powder was presented, she notified me that it was foot powder, not body powder. And the Jello was vanilla, but it wasn’t sugar-free.
How quickly we forget. Or maybe sometimes, we don’t read the instructions in the first place. Or maybe we read them, but don’t pay attention to the details.
In the details.
That’s where we find God, written all over the pages of His sacred word. If you doubt this, just read the book of Leviticus sometime, and look at the details of God’s requests.
Many are the times in the Christian journey, in trying to please God, that we struggle while striving to be found faithful to Him. Many times, like my trip to the store for my wife, we just get so busy that we forget His instructions. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes not.
We know the commandments. The ‘do’s and ‘don’t’s. The ‘be careful’s. But what about that one commandment, that applies to every Christian, that many times we overlook? Or perhaps that we’ve always overlooked? I call it “God’s forgotten commandment’:
“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
How many times have you read that scripture? Given it heed? Actually done it on a consistent (if not daily) basis?
God’s forgotten commandment. Or maybe the ignored commandment. We’re good, or at least we think we are, until we truthfully examine our lives in service to God. What God’s expectations are versus our own. Daily. By the hour. By the minute.
Yes, it’s a full-time, never-ending battle here below, but without examination, we may not truly be where we think we are in the light of God’s eyes. This introspection, I hope, will help us all to see the seriousness of examining our lives daily in service to God in many ways that we ignore now, but which God doesn’t.
Examination. Defined as a detailed inspection or investigation, just the word used to send cold chills down my spine.
Time for that final exam in school. Doctors yearly exam. Time to go to the dentist office for your exam. Nope. Not interested. Not me. I’m good.
Then there was the day I was told my blood pressure was at stroke level and I needed to go on medicine immediately.
You know the story. And how many times do we ignore the signs. The warnings. Signs that our life as Christians are not what they should be in order to please our God. We know what things in our life are amiss. But we choose to move on.
That’s the reason I call 2 Corinthians 13:5 Gods forgotten commandment. Or maybe we could call it the ignored commandment.
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
What did it say?
Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith….
Since God wrote His word through the divinely inspired apostles and prophets, this is a commandment from God. It is not optional.
My dear Christian brothers and sisters, many of you who have been in service to God for decades, when is the last time you examined yourselves as to whether or not you were in the faith? Ever?
I got my degree in advertising, marketing, and public relations at the University of Arkansas, and I worked in every aspect of the business for over 40 years.
We were told in our studies that every story you write and read has to answer the following six questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?
As you read further, we will be doing a thorough examination of ourselves, and we’ll ask the following questions as they pertain to our life as an obedient child of God.
Who are you?
What are you?
When are you?
Where are you?
Why are you?
How are you?