Extract from "Cafe David"

Description:
Most of us live our lives blindly and carelessly. We have no idea where we are going, where we have come from, what we are doing and how we have changed.

It is important to take spiritual stock of our lives on a regular basis. This is to have an idea of our spiritual health. Are we really growing, are we stagnant or are we backsliding?

Sometimes, we grow in some areas and we neglect other areas. If we do not take stock, we have no idea what is going on in our lives. And we cannot take corrective measures to prevent further decline.

Ingredients:
These are some recommended categories to take stock of:
1. Lordship
2. Love
3. Holiness/Consecration
4. Word
5. Worship
6. Prayer
7. Relationship with God - Intimacy, quiet time etc.
8. Character - heart, authenticity, integrity, humility, discipline, submission, accountability, diligence, perseverance etc.
9. Service - calling/vision, gifts, missions etc.
10. Reproduction - evangelism, discipleship etc.
11. Holy Spirit
12. Stewardship - time, money, body, other lives etc.
13. Leadership
14. Work/Career
15. Relationships - family, church, world etc.

Directions:
1. Decide on how regular you want to conduct your stocktake and stick to it. Yearly is ok. Every 6 months is recommended. Every 3 months is even better!

2. Decide the categories that you want to monitor in your spiritual life.

3. As you grow spiritually, it is very likely that you will have new areas to monitor as God does new things in your life. It is recommend to group these new items in categories to manage them.

4. At each stocktake, write out a simple sentence describing where you are at for that item as at the date of your stocktake.

For example, for the category "Word", your entries could be as follows:
January 2004 - I spend 10 minutes each day reading the Word.
July 2004 - My hunger for the Word has grown. I read the Word at least 30 minutes a day.
January 2005 - I no longer read the Word everyday. I average 2 to 3 times a week.
July 2005 - The only time I read the Word is on Sundays.
January 2006 - I am regularly reading the Word between 10-15 minutes a day.

5. Make a simple record so that you can track your growth/decline in an area over the years of your spiritual growth.

6. Sometimes, some things become permanent features in your life. When this happens, you can drop the item and stop monitoring it.

7. After I finish going through the categories, I have a fairly good picture of my spiritual condition. I then spend some time seeking God for what He wants me to focus on in the coming period.

8. It is recommended that you fast and pray as you do this.

9. The above is just one way of conducting a spiritual stocktake. Do what works for you and gives you the most benefit. The objective is to know your spiritual condition.

"Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves." (2 Corinthians 13 v5a)

Labels: Inspiration