Skip to content ↓

Keep a Close Watch on Yourself!

Keep a Close Watch on Yourself

It happens with alarming, distressing regularity. And it hurts every time. It hurts every time we see a person we love or admire fall into a great sin or deny a precious doctrine. We are always left asking ourselves how it happened. What went wrong? How did we not see this coming? How did they not see this coming?

Every one of these situations is unique and uniquely complicated. And yet there is always an inevitable, terrible simplicity as well. These people failed to carry out a simple task. They failed to maintain an effective self-watch. When Paul wrote to Timothy he said, “keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching”—keep a close watch on how you behave and on what you believe. Though Paul spoke to Timothy as a pastor, these words apply to each and every Christian. Are you keeping a close watch?

Keep Watch on Your Life

Think of someone you know who committed one of those grave sins, the kind of sin that disqualified him from ministry or wrecked her home and marriage. Think, perhaps, about the person who was caught in an illicit affair. It’s not like this person just woke up one morning and said, “I think I’ll commit adultery today.” No, that sin was the result of a long relaxing of vigilance. He first allowed his eyes to wander, then allowed lustful thoughts to linger. She began to strike up conversations she knew she shouldn’t have, to go where she shouldn’t have gone, and to linger in the presence of someone she should have stayed away from. Over time these small actions prepared them for that big sin, primed them for that major fall. The sin was so unnecessary, so avoidable. But it became possible, it became inevitable, when they failed to keep a close watch on their behavior, on their life, on themselves.

God calls us to keep a close watch on our behavior and this requires both inner and outer vigilance, knowing ourselves and being known by others.

Inner vigilance is seeing ourselves through the lens of the Bible and believing what we see there. It is reading the Bible in such a way that the Bible reads us. The Bible exposes our hearts, lays bare our motives, calls us to believe and obey. We are to mine the darkest depths of our hearts through the brilliant light of scripture, to know our specific weaknesses and favorite temptations, and to do the difficult work of putting sin to death while coming alive to righteousness.

We keep a close watch on our lives by allowing others to keep a close watch on our lives.

Outer vigilance is allowing others to see and know us. It is joining in community with others, exposing our hearts before trusted friends, allowing them to have a voice, and believing what they see and say. It is humility expressed in transparency. We keep a close watch on our lives by allowing others to keep a close watch on our lives.

Keep Watch on Your Doctrine

While some fall because they fail to keep a close watch on their behavior, others fall because they fail to keep a close watch on their beliefs. Think about that person who comes to deny a precious doctrine of the Christian faith, whose name is one day splashed across headlines for his new, more progressive kind of Christianity.

This person does not simply wake up one morning and decide to deny the faith or to affirm something utterly contrary to the Bible. This big denial or ugly affirmation follows a long period of drifting. Recently I read of a theologian who has changed his views on marriage and homosexuality. He did not have a major epiphany one day that changed everything. No, he first altered his position on the inerrancy and authority of the Bible, then his view of sin and sinfulness, then his understanding of love. His slide was slow but steady. He failed to keep a close watch on his doctrine and one by one his beliefs eroded until his new position became unavoidable, inevitable.

God’s ways are too divine, too other, to play nicely with sinful humanity.

Once more, we need to maintain both inner and outer vigilance. In this case the inner vigilance is of the same kind—reading God’s Word, believing God’s Word, and obeying God’s Word. It is trusting that God speaks clearly and that very often what he speaks will be contrary to what the culture around us desires or demands. God’s ways are too divine, too other, to play nicely with sinful humanity.

The outer vigilance may come from those who know and love us, but as commonly and importantly it involves immersing ourselves in the historic Christian faith, reading deeply of those who have gone before. After all, while society changes, while social mores shift, the truth remains fixed and certain. It is rare that the church has consistently, historically been wrong on a major point of doctrine. It is only with the greatest caution and overwhelming support that we should depart from what the church has always taught.

Are You Keeping Watch?

Do you see it? Crumbling behavior and crumbling beliefs, a shipwrecked life or a shipwrecked faith, both result from a lack of vigilance. This is why it is your responsibility to “keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching” (1 Timothy 4:16). This is why God charges elders to “pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). God charges every Christian to be vigilant over how you behave and what you believe. Are you keeping a close watch?


  • A Batch of New Books for Kids

    A Batch of New Books for Kids (and Teens)

    Every month I put together a roundup of new and notable books for grownup readers. But I also receive a lot of books for kids and like to put together the occasional roundup of these books as well. So today I bring you a whole big batch of new books for kids of all ages…

  • A La Carte Thursday 1

    A La Carte (March 28)

    A La Carte: The case against the abortion pill / What I’ve learned about grieving with hope / Heartbreaking deception: teen girls, social media, and body image / Could podcasts save the church from stupidity? / Count it all joy / and more.

  • What God Wants You To Forget

    What God Wants You To Forget

    We are never far from reminding God of our credentials, of providing him with a curriculum vitae that lays out all we are, all we have been through, and all we have accomplished for his sake. We are never far from making the subtle turn from grace to merit, from what is freely given to…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (March 27)

    A La Carte: New music / Millennials and GenZ / Scotland’s new hate crime law / Cate Blanchett, Easter is for you / Why the Reformed pray for revival / What truly happened to Jesus on the cross? / and more.

  • New and Notable Books

    New and Notable Christian Books for March 2024

    As you know, I like to do my best to sort through the new Christian books that are released each month to see what stands out as being not only new, but also particularly notable. I received quite a number of new titles in March and narrowed the list down to the ones below. I…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (March 26)

    A La Carte: God delivers from the suffering he ordains / The beautiful partnership of family and church / The end of religious liberty / On whales, menopause, and thanks to God / Ordinary women, extravagant gifts / and more.