Donald Whitney

10 Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

Da Vinci Anatomy (Red)

How are you doing, Spiritually?

That is an important question.  God repeatedly encourages us to examine our hearts.  And while many are aware that it ought to be our regular practice to take a spiritual pulse, I suspect that relatively few know how to read the gauges even if we were to try.

Consequently, if we are not sure what we are looking for, it follows that we are not always quite sure how to answer my initial question.

Don Whitney, of The Center for Biblical Spirituality, provides us with a helpful tool for use in measuring our spiritual health.  The 10 questions below are excerpted from his short book 10 Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health.

Immediately below is a brief Introduction written by Don Whitney.  At the bottom of this post are the 10 Questions Whitney asks, each with a link to a brief post devoted to the particular question.

Let’s see how we are doing… And let’s ask ourselves – and each other – these questions often.

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One of the early explorers to the North Pole charted his journey hourly to ensure that he stayed on course through the white wasteland. At one point a strange phenomenon began to occur. As he checked his position, his instruments indicated that even though he had been moving northward, he was actually farther south than he had been an hour before. Regardless of the speed at which he walked in the direction of the Pole, he continued to get farther from it. Finally he discovered that he had ventured onto an enormous iceberg that was drifting in one direction as he was walking in the other.

There is a world of difference between activity and progress. That is as true on a Christian’s journey toward the Celestial City of heaven as it is on a North Pole expedition. The Christian life is meant to be one of growth and progress. We are even commanded in 2 Pet. 3:18 , “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

How can we know that we are growing in grace—that we are making real progress and not merely deceiving ourselves with activity?

It’s often hard to recognize spiritual advance over a week’s time or maybe even a month’s time. Trying to determine the progress of a soul is like looking at the growth of an oak—you can’t actually see it growing at the moment, but you can compare it to where it was some time ago and see that there has indeed been growth. The following 10 questions can help you discern whether you are maturing spiritually. Use them to evaluate the past six to 12 months.

  1. Are you more thirsty for God than ever before?
  2. Are you more and more loving? 
  3. Are you more sensitive to and aware of God than ever before?
  4. Are you governed more and more by God’s Word?
  5. Are you concerned more and more with the physical and spiritual needs of others? 
  6. Are you more and more concerned with the Church and the Kingdom of God?
  7. Are the disciplines of the Christian life more and more important to you?
  8. Are you more and more aware of your sin? 
  9. Are you more and more willing to forgive others? 
  10. Are you thinking more and more of heaven and of being with the Lord Jesus?

10 Questions to Ask at a Christmas Gathering

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment
We Wish You a Merry Christmas

Do you have any Chrstmas gatherings to attend this holiday season?  My thanks to Don Whitney for suggesting the following questions to spruce up the conversation, especially at church:

  1. What’s the best thing that’s happened to you since last Christmas?
  2. What was your best Christmas ever? Why?
  3. What’s the most meaningful Christmas gift you’ve ever received?
  4. What was the most appreciated Christmas gift you’ve ever given?
  5. What was your favorite Christmas tradition as a child?
  6. What is your favorite Christmas tradition now?
  7. What do you do to try to keep Christ in Christmas?
  8. Why do you think people started celebrating the birth of Jesus?
  9. Do you think the birth of Jesus deserves such a nearly worldwide celebration?
  10. Why do you think Jesus came to earth?

My Spiritual EKG

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

“How are you doing, Spiritually?” That is an important question.

The Great Physician, by both direct and indirect statements in his Word, repeatedly encourages us to examine our hearts. But while many may be  aware that it ought to be our regular practice to take a Spiritual pulse, I suspect that relatively few know how to read the gauges even if they try. Consequently, if we are not certain what we are looking for, it follows that we are not always quite sure how to answer our opening question. So, it seems, the typical response we might give, even to those who may genuinely care, is an awful lot like the responses we give to the stranger on the street, or the hotel clerk we see each morning on vacation, when they ask “How are you today?” “Fine, thanks. And you?” But this is too important a question to simply perpetuate the standard reflex response.

I have benefited from regularly asking myself 10 Questions I learned from Don Whitney and his short but helpful book: 10 Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health. Asking myself these questions, or considering observations people have offered about me as they relate to these questions, serves as a good spiritual check-up.

Each of the 10 Questions below is a link to an excerpt of respective chapters from Whitney’s book:

  1. Are you more thirsty for God than ever before?
  2. Are you more and more loving?
  3. Are you more sensitive to and aware of God than ever before?
  4. Are you governed more and more by God’s Word?
  5. Are you concerned more and more with the physical and spiritual needs of others?
  6. Are you more and more concerned with the Church and the Kingdom of God?
  7. Are the disciplines of the Christian life more and more important to you?
  8. Are you more and more aware of your sin?
  9. Are you more and more willing to forgive others?
  10. Are you thinking more and more of heaven and of being with the Lord Jesus?

10 More Questions for the New Year

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

Sir Francis Bacon once mused:

Who questions much shall learn much, and retain much.

On New Years Day I posted a set of questions to ponder at the start of the New Year.  The following are 10 more questions, from Donald Whitney, to ask ourselves here at the beginning of the New Year:

  1. What’s the most important decision you need to make this year?
  2. What area of your life most needs simplifying, and what’s one way you could simplify in that area?
  3. What’s the most important need you feel burdened to meet this year?
  4. What habit would you most like to establish this year?
  5. Who is the person you most want to encourage this year?
  6. What is your most important financial goal this year, and what is the most important step you can take toward achieving it?
  7. What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your work life this year?
  8. What’s one new way you could be a blessing to your pastor (or to another who ministers to you) this year?
  9. What’s one thing you could do this year to enrich the spiritual legacy you will leave to your children and grandchildren?
  10. What book, in addition to the Bible, do you most want to read this year?

10 Questions for the New Year

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

Donald Whitney has a knack for asking pertinent probing questions.  His questions could be used for getting to know one another in a new small group.  But I think they might best be used for personal reflection.  Whitney’s questions penetrate into the recesses of our hearts. And if we take the time to reflect upon them and answer honestly, they reveal to us our own motives and deep desires – sometimes, perhaps, even in ways we may not have previously been conscious.

As we embark in the New Year take some time to contemplate these 10 questions:

  1. What’s one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?
  2. What’s the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?
  3. What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year?
  4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it?
  5. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?
  6. What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church?
  7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?
  8. What’s the most important way you will, by God’s grace, try to make this year different from last year?
  9. What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?
  10. What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in ten years? In eternity?

6 Words Toward Open Hearts

/ Dennis Griffith / 2 Comments

From Donald Whitney:

Over and over I’ve seen one simple question open people’s hearts to hear the gospel. Until I asked this question, they showed no interest in spiritual matters. But then after six words—only seventeen letters in English—I’ve seen people suddenly begin to weep and their resistance fall. The question is, “How can I pray for you?” …

This question is similar to one that Jesus Himself sometimes asked: “What do you want me to do for you?” (Matthew 20:32). For what we are really asking is, “What do you want me to ask Jesus to do for you?” And by means of this question, we can show the love of Christ to people and open hearts previously closed to the gospel.

I had tried to talk about the things of God many times to a business-hardened, retired executive who lived next door. He was a pro at hiding his feelings and keeping conversations at a superficial level. But the day we stood between our homes and I asked, “How can I pray for you?” his eyes filled with tears as his façade of self-sufficiency melted. For the first time in seven years he let me speak with him about Jesus.

It’s a short, easily remembered question. You can use it with longtime friends or with people you’ve just met. It doesn’t seem too personal or pushy for those who’d rather give you a shallow answer just now, and yet it often leads to a full hearing of the gospel. You can ask it of people nearly every time you speak with them and it doesn’t get old. Just simply and sincerely ask, “How can I pray for you?” You’ll be surprised at the results.