Donald Whitney - Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health

Whether we consider our spiritual health to be robust or weak, Don Whitneys leadership through this self-diagnosis will almost inevitably move you to a higher spiritual plane. Whitney has given us several excellent books on the spiritual disciplines, but I believe this is the most helpful of his books to date. I personally felt my yearning for God intensify and then found expression in tangible growth as I applied Whitneys tests and comments to my own spiritual life. I commend it highly to all sincere Christian seekers.

T.W. H UNT, author and speaker

Donald Whitney asks us to interrogate our hearts before evaluating our actions to assess the health of our souls. However, the questions he supplies for this assessment not only help us examine our spiritual health, but in profound ways impart divine nutrition to all who dare to ask what he suggests.

B RYAN C HAPELL, P H. D., president of Covenant Theological Seminary, author of Christ-Centered Preaching

Don Whitney has done it again! After already giving me three of the books I most frequently recommend to others, I think hes given me a fourth! This book poses the questions we need to ponder if were to persevere in following Christ.

M ARK D EVER, pastor, Capitol Hill Baptist Church, author of Nine Marks of a Healthy Church

Vance Havner, in his book Repent or Else, states that just as we are often too busy for a spiritual checkup, so the church is often too occupied to submit to a spiritual examination. In Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health, Dr. Whitney has given us something to do just that. This is not a book you read only once. For believers who long for Revival, these are questions to which well regularly return. What a tool to prepare the hearts of a congregation for the Lords supper, or, Solemn Assemblies!

R ON O WENS, author of Return to Worship and They Could Not Stop the Music, music and worship consultant for the International Mission Board, SBC

NavPress is the publishing ministry of The Navigators, an international Christian organization and leader in personal spiritual development. NavPress is committed to helping people grow spiritually and enjoy lives of meaning and hope through personal and group resources that are biblically rooted, culturally relevant, and highly practical.

For more information, visit www.NavPress.com.

Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health

Copyright 2001 by Donald S. Whitney. All rights reserved.

A NavPress resource published in alliance with Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

NAVPRESS and the NAVPRESS logo are registered trademarks of NavPress, The Navigators, Colorado Springs, CO. TYNDALE is a registered trademark of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Absence of in connection with marks of NavPress or other parties does not indicate an absence of registration of those marks.

Cover design by Ray Moore

Cover photos by RubberBall Productions

Creative Team: Greg Clouse, Deena Davis, Lori Mitchell, Pat Reinheimer

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version, copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible, copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Some of the anecdotal illustrations in this book are true to life and are included with the permission of the persons involved. All other illustrations are composites of real situations, and any resemblance to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

Whitney, Donald S.

10 questions to diagnose your spiritual health / Donald S. Whitney.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 1-57683-096-9 (pbk.)
1. Spirituality. I. Title: Ten questions to diagnose your spiritual health. II. Title.

BV4501.3 .W47 2001
248dc21

00-054822

ISBN 978-1-57683-096-3

Build: 2020-04-23 11:37:59 EPUB 3.0

For Him who is able to establish you... ; to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be the glory forever. Amen. (Romans 16:25, 27, NASB )

And for all three generations of my girls.

May the Lord always grant you spiritual health and growth.

F IRST, I THANK MY G OD THROUGH J ESUS C HRIST FOR YOU ALL (Romans 1:8).

Much thanks to:

• Caffy and Laurelen, for your great patience. I love you.
• My brothers and sisters in Christ at North Pointe Baptist Church of Kansas City, for your prayers and encouragement. Your kindness repeatedly refreshed me, particularly during the last week of this project.
• My colleagues at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, for your counsel and support.
• Nanci McAlister, for your consistent New Testament Christianity, even in business, and for the award.
• Sue Geiman, for your long-suffering.
• Kent Wilson, for your invitation to write the book.
• Mindy Rose, for your willing spirit on so many practical details.
• Mark and Sharon Coppenger, for the time invested to write two pages of ideas when I was stuck.
• Jim Orrick, for the creative recommendations and especially for your prayer that Wednesday night near the end.
• Rachel Sparks, for your typing. (And you, too, Jay, for running upstairs in the library late that night to help me complete that Spurgeon footnote.)
• Bob, Jenny, Josh, and Zach Hall, for your time and timely help. The food and the mowing made a hard time easier. And I wouldnt have made that flight if you hadnt printed the manuscript for me.
• Tammi Ledbetter, for finding a computer for me to use at the convention.
• The countless others who deserve thanks for their contribution to this book.

For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister (Hebrews 6:10).

D URING THE PAST YEAR, HAVE YOU HAD ANY TROUBLE SLEEPING?

Have you experienced any breathing difficulties?

Any changes in your eyesight?

Relax while I test your reflexes.

Has the nurse drawn your blood yet?

Now for this next test...

This is the way it goes during my annual physical checkup. The doctor always evaluates my bodily health by two meansquestions and tests.

The English Puritans of 1550 to 1700 used to refer to ministers as physicians of the soul. In our day, as in theirs, the timeless process of discerning ones spiritual health likewise involves questions and tests. My purpose in writing these pages is to act as a physician of the soulto ask questions and suggest spiritual tests that can, by the help of the Holy Spirit, enable you to self-diagnose your spiritual health.

For health to be present, of course, there must be life. I wrote this book with the assumption that its readers would possess the eternal life given by grace to those who know God through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ. The night before He was crucified, Jesus prayed, And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent (John 17:3). Stressing the necessity of knowing Jesus, the Son of God, in order to have eternal life, the apostle John added, He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life (1 John 5:12).