The other day I went to the doctor. I was there for a check up. The doctor asked me a bunch of questions and took my temperature. Eventually he told me that he needed to take a blood sample. I told him I felt fine so there was no need. I knew that that was not a very reasonable answer. However, I hated..... no I hate getting my blood taken! The thought of a needle stabbing you in the arm and extracting your precious ruby red blood just sickens me. It is not simply the fact that the puncture of your skin and vein are a discomfort, it is also the fact that you know your very life force is being drained from your body. In truth, I am a wimp when it comes to blood. Now some of you might be thinking, " wow what a wimp, he can't even get his blood taken." Well I admit it. I am a wimp. I am working on it though. Maybe, in fifteen years, I will be able to get my blood taken. One of the bad things about not getting your blood taken is that you could have something wrong with you and not even know it. You see it is not simply a matter of how you feel. The fact that I felt OK, in the doctors office, told the doctor and myself absolutely nothing as far as my health was concerned. Logically, I can feel fine and still my body could have something wrong with it. Why else would he want my blood when in fact he could of asked me how I felt?
The question that I want to pose to all of us is: How are you spiritually? Some of you might hate this question just as much as I hate getting my blood taken. Some of you might be thinking, "well I feel fine, therefore I am fine." However, we already established that truth is not determined by our feeling, right? So again the question is this: How are you spiritually? Well some might say, "What do you mean Stephen." Well, let me explain by pointing out what Paul the Apostle wrote. Paul the apostle says in 1 Timothy 4:7 "Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness." Well are you disciplining yourself for the purpose of godliness? Do you have a regular disciplined Bible reading time. Do you have a regular disciplined prayer time. Do you intentionally witness to the people you meet or already know. Do you show up to church when we meet as a community or do you only come when it is convient? The bigger question is this: Do you desire to magnify, glorify and spread the name and fame of our Lord and Savior?
If there is something wrong with me not getting my blood taken, for my physical health, how much worse is it if I am not examining my heart for my spiritual health? Let us then examine our selves to check our spiritual health. Do not be like the mythomaniac that spends her time reading love letters signed by a prince, all the while suppressing the fact that it was not a prince that wrote to her but herself! Listen to what the Apostle Peter wrote in 2 Peter 1:10 "Therefore, brothers be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall." Also head Pauls command in 2 Corinthians 13:5 " 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!"

Written by Stephen Stanford