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| Self Examination: To see what you need to see when looking at your self. Scripture teaches us to `"examine ourselves," confess our sins, and God will forgive us. So how od we do this accurately? The set of "token" sins that we know of is easy to see. We know if we have committed adultry or fornication. We know if we had lied, disrespected someone, or stolen something. But the Bible equates inward sin (of the heart and mind) to outward sin (of action). This makes self-examination more difficult because whether you have committed sin in your heart or mind is not be so obvious. According to Jesus, a person who lusts has already committed adultery. (Matt 5:27-28). Sins like coveting (wanting something of another persons) is included in the 10 commandments right along with theft and idolatry. And in the new testament, we are taught that harboring hatred in our hearts makes us murderers. How does self-examination on this level work? Has God laid an impossible task on us in asking that we examine ourselves to this degree? Is it really reasonable to say that those "inner" sins are really as "bad" as the outward ones? Many of the philosophies and "rules" that we have grown up with teach us that doing something wrong in your heart or mind or fantasies is really harmless. As long as a person knows the difference between fantasy and reality, and does no "actual" damage, no harm done. We live in a time where many things that would be considered atrocious if actually carried out are very commonly used as entertainment and fun.We have technology now that we commonly use to get to do the evil we like that is not outwardly "proper" or acceptable. We have habits of sitting idily by and watching evil to be entertained. This can happen in through TV, internet, music, movies, and books for entertainment to more serious interactive forms of indulgence like occult games and toys, video games where the goal is to commit atrocites to "win", some virtual reality fantasies, strip shows, phone-sex and phone-psychics, and illicit internet activities.These tools, if used for such things, can allow the inner man to murder, maime, steal, commit adultery and fornication, get involved with the occult, hate, interact with demons, and without doing any outward and obvious "sin." (Please note that the tools themselves- internet, TV, movies, games, etc- are not evil. They can and are in many cases being used for good- information, teaching, news, education, ministry, etc. The wickedness depends on the nature and intent of the specific show, movie, game, etc.). This idea that the inner self does not matter is a lie and if believed, is extremely dangerous. According to God, the inner man is VERY important. In order to examine ourseves on the inside, we must ask God to allow us to see the inner man. The "inner man" of a person consists of different parts: the soul (mind, emotions, and will), and the spirit (concience, truth-knowledge, identity). When we have a "sense" that something in us is right or wrong, that sense is coming from one or both the soul and the spirit. The soul is the part of us that is our earthly intellect, reasoning, feelings, and decisions. This part of a person is the critical area that needs to be examined because it's different parts can be turned to obey and honor God or go against him. The spirit, the other part of the inner man, is the part of you that knows the truth about yourself. We must not be presumptuous and be careful to test our feelings of conviction or affirmation because they may be deceptive. It is easy to feel good about a sinful attitude or experience heavy guilt and "conviction" about something that is in reality right and according to God's word. |