“Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart.” (Psa. 26:2)
Our God is omniscient, which means he holds an infinitely perfect, divine, all-seeing understanding of himself and all things. 1 Samuel 2:3 says, “For the Lord is a God of knowledge.” His understanding is so infinitely perfect, in fact, that he is able to judge the innermost recesses of the heart with the greatest depth and accuracy.
For this reason, a man willing to have his soul searched by God is a sign of grace. And yet the psalmist in our text today says, “Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart,” (Psa. 26:2). It is as if the psalmist is saying, “I appeal to you; take note whether I am not inwardly as I profess myself to be.” It stands to reason that before the psalmist could pray such a prayer, he must examine his own heart and see that he walked consistently in godliness and holiness.
The door on this old year is closing behind us as the one to the new year is opening. As you reflect on this past year, how would you consider your walk with Christ to have been? Did you grow in your relationship with him? What have you experienced this last year that caused your walk to deepen and the sweetness of Christ to be more readily discernable to you?
This kind of self-examination, while prayerfully asking God to examine our walk, is a plea to self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is that acquaintance with ourselves which shows us who we are, how we behave, and what we ought to be, in order to live before God in a manner consistent with his Word as redeemed sinners. The means to this self-awareness is a thorough self-examination, and the end of it is self-government.
Did not Paul say, “Prove your own selves,” (2 Cor. 13:5)? Jonathan Edwards said in his famous Resolutions, “Resolved, to strive to my utmost every week to be brought higher in religion, and to a higher exercise of grace, than I was the week before.” To do this, one must engage in a thoughtful reflection of their walk. People are not brought to a higher exercise of grace by accident. Nor does the Spirit merely zap a person to a higher exercise of grace. They must take time and effort to cultivate it.
The sum of true wisdom consists in two things: the knowledge of God, and the knowledge of ourselves. If we do not know ourselves, we will never grow in grace and reform in life. So set aside some alone time during the last few days and hours of this waning year to examine your heart and your life in terms of your walk with the Lord.
You might ask, what should I examine? This is an excellent question. We are to examine and prove what is our common practice. The tree is judged by the ordinary fruit it bears. The apostle speaks of his “manner of life,” that it was “godly in Christ Jesus,” (2 Tim. 3:10, 12). Is it obvious to those in your world that you are a God-honoring believer? If our “manner of life” is no different than that of an unbeliever, we cannot expect to enter the kingdom of God, (Luke 13:26-27). But if the prodigal returns to his father’s house, he is received with joy, and his former rebellion is forgiven. So the door of hope is open even to the ungodly man if he will only repent and return to the Father.
We must examine what company we keep, whether it be the company of the wicked or the just? We must examine how we speak, whether it is characterized by selfishness or by love. We must examine what thoughts are allowed to take root within us: sinful thoughts or holy thoughts? We must examine the level of our spiritual discernment, for we know the Gospel is hidden from the natural man, but saints have a faculty for spiritual discernment to be able to judge the world and all that occurs in it. We must also examine whether we love the things of the world as Lot’s wife did, or do we set our hearts toward eternal thoughts of the King and the kingdom that is to come as Abraham did?
We must examine if we hate sin and love righteousness, and whether we are willing to be reformed by the Spirit or would rather continue in our sins. We must examine whether heaven takes precedent in our affections, or whether we would rather be friends with the world. We must examine what purposes we pursue: whether our desires are carnal, sinful, and worldly or whether we desire and delight in God’s glory. We must examine whether we are grieved with our sins and desire for God to forgive and make us whole.
There is much, then, in our Christian walk that we ought to consider in order to put the last year in a righteous perspective, to correct those things which are not pleasing and honoring to God, and to glorify the Lord who already knows the state of our hearts.
Contemplations:
- Lord, show me the true condition of my heart. Help me prove whether I am in the faith. If I am in the faith, my life will reflect the truth of the Gospel. And as I believe that you speak in your Word, so I will believe that you speak to me in particular. Help me apply your divine commands to my soul as I am obliged as your child to obey them and as your servant to submit to the authority of my great Lawgiver, King Jesus.
- Lord, help my faith be joined with godly sorrow and repentance (Acts 20:21) and to have a pure faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. The hypocrite’s faith is without repentance; he is a stranger to godly sorrow while being full of self-confidence. But I want my faith to be characterized by mercy and reliance on you.
- Lord, help me see Jesus more clearly in your Word that he may grow exceedingly precious to me (1 Peter 2:6-7). He is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Help me experience his power and wisdom in my life. Search me and try me and open the eyes of my heart that I might also see myself clearly as well as what I need to change and reform for your glory.
- Lord, purify my faith (Acts 15:9). Faith will persuade me of the holiness of your nature, and that you search the hearts and try the spirits of the children of men. It will help me see that only the “pure in heart shall see God,” (Matt. 5:8). Help me by faith see that Christ died in order that he “might sanctify and cleanse his Church and present it unto himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing,” but that it might be “holy and without blemish,” (Eph. 5:26-27).
- Lord, I want to thoroughly examine my life over the past year so that I might see my faith working by love. “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which works by love,” (Eph. 5:6). Show me how faith derives strength from my Lord Christ for obedience to your will as well as reliance on his justifying righteousness.
- In my search, Lord, show me that Christ is in me, and that I shall account it my happiness to be where he is and to behold his glory.
Further References for Psalm 26:2:
Psalm 139:23; Jer. 20:12; Job 13:23; Zech. 13:9.
