When I was a boy growing up in Vermont I used to make a little extra money in late spring and early summer by gathering morel mushrooms in the woods and selling them to a local restaurant called “The Countryman’s Pleasure.” For whatever reason morels can’t be farmed or grown commercially, and so they have to be gathered in the wild. That’s why they bring such a high price. Today the going rate for fresh morels is about $30-35/pound.   

It all felt slightly clandestine when I would come knocking at the back door of the restaurant with my brown paper bag filled with shrooms. The chef, who had a thick German accent, would usher me in and I would open my sack so he could examine them. I remember that he would inspect each one very carefully. He explained that sometimes people confused morels with another kind of mushroom called a “false morel.” To the untrained eye, the false morel, could look a lot like a true morel but it contained a toxin (monomethyl hydrazine or MMH for short) which, when ingested, caused dizziness, vomiting, and sometimes even death. He further explained, with his characteristic dark, German humor, that such a mix up would be bad for the restaurant. 

When  it comes to wild mushrooms (especially ones gathered by a junior high boy) we all see the importance of a close and careful examination before ingesting them. This is even more true when it comes to the basis of our hope in Jesus and the sincerity of our confession.  2 Corinthians 13:5 says, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith.” 

As we head into the fall we want to revisit some old, foundational truths that are central to our disciple-making and disciple-being efforts at State Road. Loving God, loving others and love in action are three statements that we hear a lot around here, but how do we know what love is? In practical terms what does it look like to love God and love others? How exactly do we go about examining ourselves to measure our sincerity in the way we live out these three statements? To help us answer these questions we’ll be studying portions of  the book of 1 John together. 

1 John is a quick read, and I would like to challenge you between now and Sunday to carve out a little time to read the book in its entirety. It’s just five, short chapters long. As you read, underline any portion of the book that is worded as a diagnostic test for believers to run in examining their own hearts and mode of living. To help get you started, a couple examples of this “diagnostic language” can be found in chapter 1 verse 6 or chapter 2 verse 3, but there are many other examples besides these. See how many of these diagnostic passages you can find in 1 John. You might also underline every time John writes “by this we know.” Throughout this short, punchy book John is helpfully providing us with very clear and practical instructions on how to examine ourselves (not others) to see how far we have come as followers of Jesus.