Diagnostic Questions

 

    In medicine we are taught diagnostic questions. They are questions we ask patients that lead us to the right diagnosis of their illness. Sometimes you will hear patients complain, "He didn't even examine me; he just wrote me a prescription!" Not that I condone that but in the age of Covid 19 where doctors stand outside the door and talk to you, I can see it happening increasingly. The fact is, at least 90% of the time we know what the problem is just from these diagnostic questions before examining, taking x-rays or drawing blood.

     Some examples are if someone complains of right lower quadrant pain, you could ask, "If I brought you a cheeseburger right now could you eat it?", and they answered "yes", they don't have appendicitis. If it is a woman with an early pregnancy who is bleeding and hurting in one side and you ask, "Does it feel like if you had a bowel movement the pain would go away?", and they answer, "Yes but I tried and it doesn't.", they have a tubal pregnancy. If someone has right upper quadrant pain and you ask, "Does it hurt worse when you eat fried food"?, and they answer "yes", they probably have gall stones. If someone comes in with more than 3 complaints and you ask, "Does your hair hurt?", and they answer "Yes", they have nothing physically wrong with them.

      In an age of spiritual deception, especially in the non-persecuted church, it becomes increasingly difficult to tell true believers from non-believers. Jesus warned us that would be the case 2000 years ago when He talked about wheat and tares in the church and you could make an argument that it isn't up to us to be the "spiritual Gestapo" looking for infiltrators in our midst; that is God's job who knows the heart - just make sure of our own heart. That is probably closer to the truth than what I am going to propose but there are occasions when we are speaking to people on a one on one basis or preaching to a group where I feel it is important for people to examine themselves and see if they are truly believers and this is where spiritual diagnostic questions come in handy.

     One such question is given to us by Evangelism Explosion and it is, "When you stand before the Lord someday and He says, 'Why should I let you enter into my kingdom?', what would your answer be?" If the answer is anything along the lines of, "I'm a good person" or works oriented, then they probably aren't a true believer because the first step to entering the Kingdom of God is to admit you aren't good enough.

    I've been pondering a second question lately and that question is, "What is your goal in life?" According to the Holy Spirit inspired words of Paul in Gal.2:20 and Col. 3:1-3, a believer no longer lives for him(her)self but their life is over and they live in and for Christ. In 2Cor. 5:9 Paul says his goal is to please Christ. Jesus says in John 15:16 that we are to "bear fruit" which is the manifestation of Christ in us. Therefore if one's goal in life has nothing to do with pleasing Christ, in some way, the diagnostic question would reveal that they are spiritually lost. 

     Maybe they just didn't have time to ponder the answers and if you questioned them they would say, "Yes, that's what i meant, I know that." Then why didn't they say that? Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. Like I said, it isn't mine to judge, God knows the heart. If you, however, have asked yourself these questions and answered wrongly - reassess whose you are.