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Conducting a Spiritual Audit
Twelve questions to keep your personal accounts in order.
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I kept wishing he could, like a child, feel the love of God in a warm, personal way, which would relieve him of feeling responsible to impress God. 3. Does my family recognize the authenticity of my spirituality?They see me whole. I would like to believe—and must believe—that if I am growing spiritually, my family will recognize it. The late Ray Stedman, pastor of Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto, California, called together the first advisers for the Council on Biblical Exposition. There were seventeen or so well-known ministers and me, there as Ray's friend. During lunch, Stephen Olford said, "My brothers, I am weary of celebrity religion. I have had my share of honors, but when I die, unless my family can say, 'There is something of God in the man,' then I will have failed." There came that holy hush of self-examination for each of us. 4. Do I have a flow-through philosophy?Scripture says, "He that believeth in me, out of his innermost parts will flow rivers of living water." The freshness is in the flow. The mountain stream is fresh; the Everglades are stagnant. Some of us want to be a lake, not a river. We want to accumulate before we let too much flow through. However, as a Christian, I am to let the blessings flow through me. Certainly this involves more than money per se. When Christ praised the widow who gave a mite, was he not praising her sacrifice rather than her gift? Could it be that God appreciates only what we give as a sacrifice? Didn't David say, "I will not give God that which costs me nothing"? If I have been blessed with leadership, that blessing should flow out. An entrepreneurial friend in Colorado has developed a program, "Counsel and Capital," to help ministries in trouble. He analyzes their problem and makes a list of things, in order, that they need to do. Normally the first ten of the twenty things do not cost money; they cost organizational readjustment. When they have done the things that cost no money, then he helps them get the capital for doing things beyond that. My friend has a flow-through philosophy with his gift of leadership. At a weekend retreat outside Fresno, I spent three days with a couple hundred laymen. To my surprise, they had not invited another speaker, so I had to hold forth from Friday noon until Sunday noon. (I accused them of running a cheap program with only one speaker who came free.) Late Sunday afternoon, I was flying back to Dallas when I realized, I am totally relaxed. This didn't make sense. After that much effort, I should have been either high as a kite or lower than a snake's belt buckle. |             | |||||||||||||||||||
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