By We all sin in many ways. Some of our sins we are well aware of, yet we are not always quick to repent. Other times we are not even aware of our sinful deeds to God and others. Our most loved ones might cover them many times with their great love for us and perhaps even try to address some of them at times, but sadly we don’t normally respond well to that either.
We need to learn the skill of self-examination.
Use the following worksheets as your guide. This is best completed when you have much time for thinking about it. Book a morning off, a day away, or perhaps two or three. Remove all the distractions of the world; make time to think, reflect, ponder, and pray. Complete these worksheets as things come to mind. Try to handle only one worksheet at a time. When the first is completed, only then start on the next. You might need to go back to previous ones to add or change something, but try not to answer all the worksheets simultaneously.
Keep your Bible handy at all times, read much, search it to have your eyes opened and your conscience informed.
Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Psalm 139:23-24
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!
Worksheet 1
Write down all the sinful deeds you commit with some repetition or regularity. Make a note of who is on the receiving end of your sin at the end of each listed deed.
Worksheet 2
Write down how your sinful deeds have impacted those whom you sinned against. Think much about how it has probably affected them in the moment and over a period of time.
Worksheet 3
Write down how you have dealt with the various sins. Have you repented, if so, how? If not, what kind of excuses do you use? Is there perhaps a difference in the way that you wish you had dealt with them, perhaps even how you thought you have dealt with them, compared to how you in reality responded after the various sins.
Worksheet 4
Make a list of the people (and God!) you need to make right with. How will you engage them in resolving your sinful deeds quickly.
Like continual cutting and shaving keeps growing hair from looking like a monster, so the continual putting off of sin keeps the ever-present sin from turning us into relational monsters.
Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
Psalm 51:6
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.