The complete God-head is engaged with us as we humbly submit ourselves to our Father, who desires to make us more and more beautiful for His glory and our good. We are never alone in this process. Self-examination is a lifelong process.  If you’re anything like me, I would love to not struggle with sin.  I would love to be able to say to it, “one and done!” and move on. But that’s not the nature of sin so it is not the nature of our sanctification.  There will be some sins that God will graciously root out and we will find victory over them.  But there will be some that will plague us until we go home to be with the Lord. 

This summer, a group of ladies and I are studying the book of Hosea.  It is a prophetic book written by Hosea, who lived during the ancient reigns of the Kings of Judah right before the nation of Israel went into exile.  Hosea illustrates with vivid and shocking word pictures the depths of Israel’s unfaithfulness towards the Lord which justifiably stirred His righteous jealousy and anger.  Yet, its prophetic word points to Israel’s future reconciliation and redemption in the coming Messiah (Hos 3:5).
Hosea was written with a purpose: to shock the sensibilities and expose the ugliness in Israel so that they comprehend the reason for their exile, see their error in technicolor, confess it, repent, and return to the Lord.  It was an opportunity for self-examination at its most intense.
One way we may try to make this book relevant to our modern lives is to use this text to guide our own self-examination; to see where we have rejected our Lord and “sought other lovers.”  The study asked us, “How are you like Gomer?” which, on its surface, is meant as an effort to awaken ourselves out of our slumber in an illegitimate bed.  Yet, I have an uneasiness in this comparison; not because I’m uncomfortable with the idea that Gomer’s explicit sins are representative of Israel’s unfaithfulness to the Lord God (as awkward as they are to study).  And it’s not because I am unwilling to admit my own sin and rebellion towards the Lord.  I’m uncomfortable with identifying with Gomer because Gomer represents an unrepentant people who are living in open rebellion to God. As a Christian, I am not a Gomer.
Why is this important distinction?  It is important because as we go to the Lord for Him to examine us by His truth, we need to go to Him by faith in the assurance that our relationship to Him and His love for us is based upon the finished work of Christ on our behalf.  Our unfaithfulness — past, present, and future — has been completely forgiven and is not counted against us.  EVER.  If we are in Christ, our identity is in Him and not in our sin.  We are Gomers no more.  We are beloved daughters, with new hearts inclined away from our sin and towards the love of our heavenly Father, and because of our union to Christ, we have everything we need for life and godliness to live a life that is worthy of this calling.  Our identity – who we really are, how we see ourselves and how we interact in this life – affects our self-examination.  How then, knowing that our position as daughters cannot be shaken, do we approach this important discipline in our sanctification? 
The Posture of Self-Examination
When we consider the Christian practice of on-going self-examination, we are typically speaking of God’s sanctifying work within us to renew us or to restore us to what God intends for us as His people.  As created beings made in the image of God, we are to live our lives as changed people who have received love, grace and mercy instead of the wrath we deserve.  Christian self-examination is a way in which we learn to live out renewed lives evident of the change God has begun in us.  The self-examination that renews and restores is not about “how do I make myself right with God again and again” but “how do I live a life as His redeemed daughter?”
Our posture before the Lord as He examines us is always from a secure, loving covenant relationship with God because Jesus has made it so.  Because we are His daughters, we are always “right” with God.  Our relationship is secure.  Because of that specific truth, self-examination is a discipline grounded in love – His love for us that is not dependent on our own perfection but Christ’s, and our love for Him as the One who died for us.  Sanctifying self-examination has love, not shame or insecurity at its core.  John tells us, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love” (1 John 4:18).  In Christ, we are beloved, forgiven daughters and Gomers no more.
The Practice of Self-Examination
Christian self-examination is really better defined as “God-examination” – when God examines us, not we ourselves.  King David says it this way: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; see if there is any wicked way in me” (Psalm 139:12-13).  God is the One who has all authority, wisdom, and power to examine us rightly, justly, and equitably.  If left to ourselves, our examination would be shallow, incomplete and often in error – we don’t even know our own hearts (Jer. 17:9) so how can we judge it accurately? And when I judge myself, can I restore myself to God?  No.  Only God can do all these things. As Christians, this has two major implications.
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There is a time coming very soon that any Christian not willing to lie about gender, and not willing to perpetuate this lie against transgender individuals, is going to be fired for their stand. That’s both a shame and an opportunity. If God’s people are stuck in companies that hate God and promote homosexuality, transgenderism, abortion, feminism, and more, how freeing it will be, and how much louder we will be, when we’re cut loose from these companies!

It had seemed a regular Monday morning before co-worker Steve arrived. Now his outfit had everyone buzzing: instead of his standard slacks/dress shirt combo, he’d paired black pumps with a floral print dress. In the morning staff meeting, the supervisor informed everyone that Steve was now “Sue” and we should start calling him her.
It’s a scene playing out in offices across the West, and for Christians in these companies, it can seem like our choice is between compromising on God’s Truth (Gen. 1:27) by going along with the transgender lie, or compromising on our winsomeness (Col. 4:5-6) by confronting the lie.
So what’s a Christian to do?
I think a middle road of sorts can be charted, one that doesn’t compromise on God’s Truth, but which also shows a willingness to try to get along in as far as we are able. It involves using a person’s chosen new name, while avoiding any use of pronouns for them. So, in the case of Steve/Sue, even as it is odd to call him by a girlish name, we all know names that have gone from being boys’ names to girls’ names and vice versa. It doesn’t need to be our place to designate a name too girlish for a boy to have it. We can show our willingness to get along by agreeing to call our coworker by his new name of Sue.
But if that were all we were to do, that approach might lead to confusion about where God stands on the issue of gender. If we, as Christians, call transgender folk by names that align with their adopted, but not actual, gender, then we would be sowing the seeds of confusion if that was all we were to do. The reason we can go along with using “Sue” is because we’re doing so as part of a package treatment: we’ll explain that we will also be trying to avoid any mention of Sue’s pronouns. It is one thing to call a man by what would be an odd first name for a man, but it is something else to call a him her.
Though it might not be perceived as such, we would explain that this is us doing our best to get along. Sue would see any use of male pronouns for him as offensive. We would understand it to be a denial of God’s revealed truth about gender to use female pronouns for him. Therefore to minimize offense, and yet not lie, we will agree to speak of “Sue” and “Sue’s presentation” and how “Sue did a good job.” It’ll be “Sue this” and “Sue that” but never she or her.
It would be good to make this clear at the start, rather than have it be discovered by coworkers wondering why we seem to be using Sue’s name to excess. Getting ahead of it makes sure that our Christian witness is clear.
Will that satisfy our employers? Perhaps. But whether it does or does not, it shows our willingness to do what we can. In extending ourselves as far as we can go, we speak the Truth as winsomely as it is in our power to so speak it. This approach may or may not please Man, but it does glorify God.
1. Words Have Power
A strange form of encouragement for this approach can be found in the words of those we oppose.
In a recent position statement proposing “chestfeeding” as a possible alternative to “breastfeeding,” the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine (ABM) began by stating, “We affirm that language has power.” They want to adopt “chestfeeding” to be sensitive to new mothers who don’t identify as being women and who, therefore, might not like to be reminded of their breasts, as those are exclusively female body parts. Language has power, so the ABM’s fix for a woman who doesn’t want to be a woman is to stop reminding her that she is a woman.
Now, as people of the Book, and followers of the Word made Flesh, we agree that “language has power.” Where we differ with the ABM is on how that power should be used.
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LGBT ideology cannot co-exist with Christian theology. It cannot compete with the loving, hopeful, freeing gospel of Jesus Christ. Therefore, it suppresses Christianity through persecution. It arrests Christians for preaching the gospel. It criminalises speech against homosexuality and transgenderism. And it charges people like Päivi Räsänen for quoting the Bible on social media. 

Don’t be surprised if one day you are on trial for quoting the Bible on social media.
If that seems unthinkable, you should know it’s already happening to some Christians in other parts of the world. Like tropical storms that devastate Caribbean and South American nations before hitting American soil, there is a coming persecution that is already affecting Christians around the world.
If things do not change, American Christians will suffer the same storms. There are already warning signs.
The Bible says,
Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. (1 Peter 4:12)
Christians have become accustomed to getting banned (or shadowbanned) on social media for our beliefs, but it seems strange to think that one day we could be arrested for quoting the Bible. 
But that’s what happened to Päivi Räsänen, a member of parliament in Finland. 
She has been an elected official since 1995. She was the chair of the Christian Democratic Party from 2004 to 2015, she was minister of the interior from 2011 to 2015, and she is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland with her husband, who serves as a pastor. 
In June 2019, Päivi tweeted a picture of Bible verses and questioned her denomination’s partnership with an LGBT Pride event. 
The prosecutor general in Finland opened an investigation against her. In April 2021, the prosecutor announced three charges of hate speech against Päivi—one charge for the tweet, a second charge for a 2004 pamphlet on sexuality for her church, and a third charge for a 2019 radio debate on sexuality.
Alliance Defending Freedom International supported her defence at a district court, and in a unanimous ruling in March 2022, the court dismissed all charges against her.
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