10 Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health

"Ten Questions To Diagnose Your Spiritual Health" resonates with a desire to help the reader grow in their thirst to know God more intimately. Donald S. Whitney approaches a diagnosis of the spiritual life in much the same way a physician uses tests and asks questions to determine physical health. Whitney asks thought provoking, probing questions that pierce the heart and conscious of the reader. Whitney begins by explaining three kinds of spiritual thirst and the importance of each. He discusses ways of discerning God's presence, and why we need to develop a deepening desire for God's Word. He goes on to examine what it means to cultivate Christian love and to respond to the needs of others with concern, especially those within the church fellowship. Important lessons on exercising spiritual disciplines, grieving over sin, forgiving others, and a longing for holiness and heaven are other marks of health of the spiritual life. Donald Whitney provides the reader with a growth pattern for Christian growth and a better understanding of how to access your own spiritual health. This Bible based book is an excellent resource tool for use in small group studies. It is a book you will want to have readily available to read and reread on a regular basis.

I give this book out like it's candy. It is very straightforward, biblical and full of Scripture, and practical. I have never had anyone I've given it to say anything other than they liked it a lot and it was very helpful. Plus, contrary to many other books on spiritual discipline, it is a pretty easy and quick read. That's nice for normal, overwhelmed people, so that they don't get discouraged at having to read a huge volume. Whitney is a scholar and has a passion for the practical, everyday life as it pertains to living out one's faith. I'd highly recommend this book.

The number of books that Christians in general(and the Puritans in particular)have written on assessing one's spiritual health are numerous. The subject of examining one's faith is scarcely writtenabout compared with the last four centuries. Some of the classics(to name a few)from the 17th and 18th century are 'Religious Affections'-Jonathan Edwards,Spiritual Refining-Anthony Burgess,The Parable of the Ten Virgins-Thomas Shepard and 'The Touchstone of Sincerity'-Thomas Brooks. A couple of the books written closer to our present day that broach the same subject are:'The Distinguishing Traits of Christian Character'-Gardiner Spring and 'Profiting from the Word'-A.W.Pink. There is a need for modern books that make such attempts and Donald Whitney's 'Ten Questions...' helps fill that need. Some think that such books lead to excessive(or morbid) introspection, and that may be a danger for some. However the far greater dangerin the 21st century is the lack of sufficient attention given to the state of ones soul. Given the Biblical exhortations to heed this important duty it seems to be ignored in many Christian circles in our day. It is a healthy practice to consider one's spiritual health and the questions asked and examined by Pastor Whitney are not only excellent questions,but much wisdom and gentleness is displayed.InChap.5 ,the question being 'Do you have a growing concern for the Spiritual and Temporal needs of Others?Christians are sometimes unbalanced in seeking to meet the Spiritual needs while overlooking the temporal needs. Thus Pastor Whitney writes on p.71"To say in effect,I love you so much and am so concerned about you that I want to give you the words of eternal life,but I don't care enough to address your basic and pressing physical need,is a denial of my supposed concern. One question that might have been askedis "Do you have an inordiante love for the things of this world? In all fairness though this question is not addressed head on it is touched on indirectly by some of the other questions that are asked.'Ten Questions...' is an excellent addition to the many books that have been written to help Christians evaluate their spiritual condition, and is paticularly important because of the paucity of books in recent years that tackle this subject and also because of the spirit of our age(which is vain and self centered to a very high degree).

As believers, we often fall prey to the assumption that those who are busiest, are most spiritual. We look at the people in our churches who are involved in all the committees and are at every meeting and assume that they are the ones with the greatest measure of spiritual health. But do you think that is the measure God uses? Or does he have a different set of criteria by which He judges spiritual health? This short but powerful book examines the Bible's teaching on this matter. As one might expect by the title, Ten Questions To Diagnose Your Spiritual Health, this book presents the reader with ten criteria that can point towards spiritual health. The crux of the matter, the theme that flows throughout the book, is this: is your character becoming more like Christ's? Here are the ten questions the reader faces: 1. Do you thirst for God? 2. Are you governed increasingly by God's Word? 3. Are you more loving? 4. Are you more sensitive to God's presence? 5. Do you have a growing concern for the spiritual and temporal needs of others? 6. Do you delight in the bride of Christ? 7. Are the spiritual disciplines increasingly important to you? 8. Do you still grieve over sin? 9. Are you a quicker forgiver? 10. Do you yearn for heaven and to be with Jesus? Each of the questions is approached and evaluated in the light of Scripture and in a way consistent with Reformed theology. In the introduction Whitney writes "In our day, as in theirs [the Puritans], the timeless process of discerning one's spiritual health involves questions and tests. My purpose in writing these pages is to act as a physician of the soul - to ask questions and suggest spiritual tests that can, by the help of the Holy Spirit, enable you to self-diagnose your spiritual health." This book bears a great resemblance to the writing of the Puritans in the sense that they were continually searching their hearts before God to discern where sin had taken hold of their lives. Their honesty and diligence in this matter was clearly influential in Whitney's writing. There are a couple of places where the author could have taken a misstep but did not. When I saw that a chapter was dedicated to sensitivity to God's presence I began to wonder how the author would approach this topic, and was glad to see that it bore no resemblance to the practices of Brother Lawrence and the other mystics that are so popular today. Instead he introduces the six ways we should understand the Bible's teaching on God's presence and how the believer is to practice them. Far from being yet another self-help or an easy-answer, ten-step book, this one is deep and penetrating. Reading this book and meditating on the questions will be sure to move believers towards a deeper relationship with Jesus. I highly recommend it!

Donald Whitney asks ten questions that examine and probe the Christian like a medical doctor would his patient to bring about a healthy result. This is a solid read and is not based upon a modern spiritualized "self-help" measure. Each question is biblically based and presents a real challenge to the sick as well as healthy Christian. Whitney states, "Nothing in the world is more important than an eternal, life-giving knowledge of God, through Jesus, who is the only way to the Father. I urge you not to take for granted the existence of such relationship between yourself and God. The Bible implores you to 'make you call and election sure.'" Anyone wishing to take a true examination of their spiritual health will do well to read and re-read this book with the Bible in hand. But be ready to discover you may not be as healthy as you think you are in your spiritual health. The Christian looking to become healthy in their relationship with Christ will want read this book.