Examining Questions from D. A. Carson

FYI: I'm editing them out of the original paragraph format into a list.

Perhaps some practical examples will help clarify Paul's prayer [in Philippians 1:9-11]

1) What do you do with your time?
2) How many hours a week do you spend with your children?
3) Have you spent any time in the past two months witnessing to someone about the gospel?
4) How much time have you spent watching television or in other forms of personal relaxation?
5) Are you committed, in your use of time, to what is best?
6) What have you read in the past six months?
7) If you have found time for newspapers or news magazines, a couple of whodunits, a novel or two or perhaps a trade journal, have you also found time for reading a commentary or some other Christian literature that will help you better understand the Bible or improve your spiritual discipline or broaden your horizons?
8) Are you committed, in you reading habits, to what is best?
9) How are your relationships doing within your family?
10) Do you pause now and then and reflectively think through what you can do to strengthen ties with your spouse and with your children?
11) Do you make time for personal prayer?
12) For prayer meetings?
13) Have you taken steps to improve in this regard?
14) How do you decide what to do with your money?
15) Do you give a set percentage, say, 10 percent, of your income to the Lord's work, however begrudgingly, and then regard the rest of your income as your own?
16) Or do you regard yourself as the Lord's steward, so that all the money you earn is ultimately his?
17) Are you delighted when you find yourself able to put much more of your money into strategic ministry, simply because you love to invest in eternity?
18) Has your compassion deepend over the years, so that, far from becoming more cynical, you try to take concrete steps to serve those who have less than you do?
19) Is your reading and study of the Bible so improving your knowledge of God that your wholehearted worship of the Almighty grows in spontaneity, devotion, and joy?
20) At what points in your life do you cheerfully decide, for no other reason than that you are a Christian, to step outside your "comfort zone," living and serving in painful or difficult self-denial?

From D. A. Carson's book A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 128-9.

How humbling. Lord have mercy on us.