Sessions Include:

1. Do You Thirst for God?
2. Are You Increasingly Governed by God’s Word?
3. Are You Becoming More Loving?
4. Are You More Sensitive to God’s Presence?
5. Do You Have a Growing Concern for Others
6. Do You Delight in the Bride of Christ?
7. Are Spiritual Disciplines Increasingly Important?
8. Do You Still Grieve Over Sin?
9. Are You Quicker to Forgive?
10. Do You Yearn for Heaven?

There is nothing in which men resemble God more truly than in doing good to others. — JOHN CALVIN

ABOUT ONE HUNDRED YEARS after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Antoninus Pius ruled the Roman Empire. Because everyone in those days was required to worship the emperor, Christians were considered disloyal and were under constant attack for participating in what Rome considered an illegal religion. Followers of Christ weren’t officially persecuted by Antoninus Pius, but they had to defend themselves incessantly against false accusations. Just as we read in the book of Acts how Paul was often hated by those who didn’t know him, and that riots sometimes broke out when lives were changed by his ministry, so it was with Christians in the decades after Paul’s labors. They were continually deflecting the false charges and undeserved blame that were being hurled at them.

On one of these occasions, a famous Grecian philosopher from Athens named Aristides—who had himself become a Christian—was called on to make a defense of the Christians before Antoninus Pius. Part of his case was this:

They love one another. The widow’s needs are not ignored, and they rescue the orphan from the person who does him violence. He who has gives to him who has not, ungrudgingly and without boasting.

Christianity is a religion of concern for others. Among what are called the “great religions of the world,” Christianity has no parallel when it comes to demonstrating concern for people and their needs. Whether the needs are temporal or eternal, felt or unperceived, no other religion is known for its love and compassion—not only for those within its ranks, but particularly toward those outside its circle of adherents—as is Christianity.

The perceptive eye and the helping hand are birthmarks of those born again in Christ. Concern for others should characterize a Christian like concern for self identifies the non-Christian. Meeting needs is the way of Jesus. And those following Jesus can trace their progress in His likeness by tracking their growth in their concern for both the spiritual and temporal needs of others.

The Biblical Near Balance

The Bible clearly teaches Christians to be concerned for both the spiritual and the temporal needs of people. Jesus, our Lord and example, often demonstrated this dual concern by healing bodies and teaching truth on the same occasion.

Donald S. Whitney, Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health (NavPress; Tyndale House Publishers, 2021), vi–3.

Check out our Bible Study on Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health . A bible study on the book of Lamentations as well as some Psalms of Lament.

These lessons are available on Amazon, as well as a part of Good Questions Have Groups Talking Subscription Service. Like Netflix for Bible Lessons, one low subscription gives you access to all our lessons--thousands of them. For a medium-sized church, lessons are as little as $10 per teacher per year.