Beloved reader, it is important that you should know the exact state of your soul before God. And if you are sincere in that petition which has often breathed from your lip, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me;” you will thank him for any gentle and faithful admonition that sets you upon the great work of self-examination. – Octavius Winslow

I ended my last blog by asking my sisters here to ponder Mr Winslow’s question: “What is the present spiritual state of my soul before God?” Mr Winslow is not the only one encouraging us to examine ourselves and our relationship with the Lord. The Bible itself commands us to do the same.

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? —unless indeed you fail to meet the test! – 2 Corinthians 13:5

To help us arrive at an honest conclusion as we examine ourselves, Mr Winslow gives us some spiritual signs / Symptoms to guide us in making the right judgement about our true spiritual state. I have listed some of them below. For the sake of clarity, I tried to group them under headings. So, the headings are mine, but the quotes under the headings are from the book.

Going Through the Motions

“When a professing man can proceed with his accustomed religious duties, strictly, regularly, formally, and yet experience no enjoyment of God in them, no filial nearness, no brokenness and tenderness, and no consciousness of sweet return, he may suspect that his soul is in a state of secret and incipient backsliding from God.”

Reading your Bible without a true desire to know God

When a professing man can read his Bible
with no spiritual taste, or when he searches it, not with a sincere desire to know the mind of the Spirit in order to a holy and obedient walk, but with a merely curious, or literary taste and aim, it is sure evidence that his soul is making but a retrograde movement in real spirituality.
They may be read, and yet read as any other book, without the deep and solemn conviction that “all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works (2 Tim 3:16,17).”
They may be read without a spiritual relish,
without being turned into prayer,
without treasuring up in the heart and reducing to daily practice:
its holy precepts,
its precious promises,
its sweet consolations,
its faithful warnings,
its affectionate admonitions,
its tender rebukes.

Praying without Intimacy

When a professing Christian can pray, and yet acknowledge that
he has no nearness to the throne,
no touching of the scepter,
no fellowship with God, – calls him “Father,” without the sense of adoption,
confesses sin in a general way, without any looking up to God through the cross,
has no consciousness of possessing the ear and the heart of God,
the evidence is undoubted of a declining state of religion in the soul.

Making worship about Self

And when too, he can find no sweetness in a spiritual ministry,
when he is restless and dissatisfied under a searching and practical unfolding of truth,
when the doctrines are preferred to the precepts,
the promises to the commands,
the consolations to the admonitions of the gospel, incipient declension is marked. 

Lack of Love towards Other believers

An uncharitable walk towards other Christians, marks a low state of grace in the soul. The more entirely the heart is occupied with the love of Christ, the less room there will be for uncharitableness towards his saints. It is because there is so little love to Jesus, that there is so little towards his followers…
In advocating a wider platform of Christian love, we would by no means “sell the truth,” or compromise principles, or immolate conscience upon the altar of an infidel liberalism. But that for which we plead, is, more of that Christian love, tenderheartedness, kindness, charity which allows the right of private judgment, respects a conscientious maintenance of truth, and concedes to others the same privilege it claims for itself.

Do we see any of this sign in our lives?  Perhaps we read the list above and think to ourselves “I am not like that”.  Before we are quick to cast these signs and symptoms behind us, I would suggest we take some time to read some of the self-examination questions posed by Mr Winslow:

“What think you of Christ?”
Does his blood daily moisten the root of your profession?
Is his righteousness that which exalts you out of and above yourself, and daily gives you free and near access to God?
Is the sweetness of his love much in your heart, and the fragrance of his name much on your lips?
Are your corruptions daily carried to his grace, your guilt to his blood, your trials to his heart?
In a word, is Jesus
the substance of your life,
the source of your sanctification,
the one glorious object on which your eye is ever resting,
the mark towards which you are ever pressing?

Do you find these questions convicting? Do they make you uncomfortable? Then run to Christ.

“Beloved reader, it is important that you should know the exact state of your soul before God. And if you are sincere in that petition which has often breathed from your lip, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me;” you will thank him for any gentle and faithful admonition that sets you upon the great work of self-examination.”

Soli Deo Gloria!

“What is the present spiritual state of my soul before God?” – Octavius Winslow

Backsliding is a topic that is often misunderstood. People tend to equate backsliding with a person losing their faith. While that may be true in some cases, it is also possible for a person who has not denied the faith to backslide as well. A person who still appears “active” in church activities.

I never really thought much of the backslidden person as one who not only still profess faith in Christ but can actually appear active in the things of the Lord until I began to read “Personal Declension and Revival of Religion in the Soul” by the puritan Octavius Winslow. I will be posting some excerpts from the book over the coming weeks, and I encourage you to read and discuss it with me.

In his preface to the book, Mr Winslow tells why he wrote the book. He observed that most of the preaching and teaching in his day centered around defending the faith and rousing a slumbering Church, but not much was being said about personal holiness.

This is what he said:

While other and abler writers are employing their pens, either in defending the outposts of Christianity, or in arousing a slumbering church to an increased intensity of personal and combined action in the great work of Christian benevolence, he has felt that it might but be instrumental, in ever so humble a way, of occasionally withdrawing the eye of the believer from the dazzling and almost bewildering movements around him, and fixing it upon the state of HIS OWN PERSONAL RELIGION, he would be rendering the Christian church a service, not the less needed and important in her present elevated and excited position.

It must be admitted, that the character and the tendencies of the age are not favorable to deep and mature reflection upon the hidden, spiritual life of the soul. Whirled along as the church of God is, in her brilliant path of benevolent enterprise, – deeply engaged in concerting and in carrying out new and far-reaching plans of aggression upon the dominion of sin, – and compelled in one hand to hold the spiritual sword in defense of the faith which, with the other, she is up-building, – but few energies are left, and but little time is afforded, for close, faithful, and frequent dealing with the personal and spiritual state of grace in the soul; which, in consequence of thus being overlooked and uncultivated, may fall into a state of the deepest and most painful declension. “They made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard have I not kept.” (Song 1:6)

It is, then, the humble design of the writer in the present work, for a while to withdraw the mind from the consideration of the mere externals of Christianity, and to aid the believer in answering the solemn and searching inquiry, – “What is the present spiritual state of my soul before God?”

While we should definitely defend the Truths of the gospel and rouse a slumbering church, but we should never forget that the church is made up of individuals. The Church cannot be holier than the individual members within it.

As a member of the Church, I fear that I have contributed to the “slumbering” of the church in my sometimes lackluster attitude towards the things of God.  I pray that the Lord will use this book together with His word to open my eyes to the declension within my heart and may He grant me the wisdom to use all the means of grace He has given to set my soul on fire for Him again.

How about you? If you’re saved, I would encourage you to take the time to ponder Mr. Winslow’s questions: “What is the present spiritual state of my soul before God?”

Soli Deo Gloria!