Psalm 139: 17- 19; 23-24

“17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them,    they would outnumber the grains of sand— when I awake, I am still with you. 23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Not only does God know us completely but David also reminds us that:

• God Thinks About Us Constantly

We have a God who knows everything about us, from our creation, as we are being formed in the womb, to our words and our ways. He sees our entire life from beginning to the end, including our frustrations, our fears and our failures and He loves us anyway. God knows both our successes and our sins, and yet despite our moral compromises He cares for us. Verse 17 tells us that He thinks about us constantly: “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.” When it comes to God’s thoughts for us David describes them as:

1. Precious

Again we see David overwhelmed by the greatness of God, “How precious to me are your thoughts.” The word precious here refers to costly jewels. David treasures the truth that we have a God who is thinking about us every second of every day. We have a God who is so involved in our lives that we can’t even begin to fathom how many times the Father thinks about us. Sadly we have become a society that no longer treasures the truths of God; instead we have traded real treasure for trash. Giving and placing value on the temporary instead of on eternal truth. We are a culture constantly seeking attention and affirmation, we want to be both seen and sought after so instead of seeking a real relationship we turn to technology where in our desperation for attention we trade the Fathers love for a Facebook like. Are you trying to get your affirmation from society or from the Savior? Are you turning to and treasuring truth or trash? Are you clinging to the temporary or the timeless? Not only are God’s thoughts precious but the second truth that David declares is that they are:

2. Profuse

“How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand” God’s thoughts for us are innumerable, they are impossible not only to understand but to count. David compares God’s thoughts to the grains of sand on the beach, today we could turn to our computers to try and calculate God’s thoughts for us but His love is so lavish and numerous that it would cause them to lock up and crash. Next time you are tempted to question God’s love take some time and grab a handful of sand and see if you can sift through and count how many grains are in your hand. Then remember that you are holding only a fraction of His loving thoughts. Not only is God’s love precious and profuse but it is also:

3. Perpetual

God’s thoughts are not only caring they are constant, David says in verse 18: “When I awake, I am still with you.” Just because we sleep doesn’t mean God slumbers as Psalm 121:3-4 says: “He will not let your foot slip ­ He who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” God’s thoughts for us are precious, profuse and perpetual. Not only does God know us completely and think about us constantly but:

• God Searches Us Carefully

What David stated in verse 1 as a matter of fact, that God had searched him, he now makes a matter of prayer in verses 23-24: “Search me, O God and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Are you inviting the Savior to search your life? This is a two part invitation; the first involves searching while the second involves testing. The verb search here is used for digging up valuable minerals in a mine, while the term test is used of examining precious metals to prove their purity. While we should take time to do some self-analysis, we should also invite and involve God for He knows us better than we know ourselves. One of the problems with self-examination is that we struggle to be truly objective. We have a tendency to overlook our flaws and justify instead of judge. As a result we will often make excuses for our deficiencies and dismiss them instead of dealing with them. Our other tendency when examining self is to evaluate ourselves based on how others are living instead of a biblical basis. So we come to the conclusion that compared to our neighbor or co-worker we are doing fine. But when we come before God our tendency to overlook our sin or look at the sin of others and see ourselves as superior is suddenly swept away. Because God sees us as we really are and reveals a true reflection of what’s really in the mirror of me. When we ask the Almighty to evaluate our lives we are really asking 4 things:

1. Search me, all of me, including the hidden rooms of my heart where my dark secrets and deeds lurk.
2. Test me, to see if I am pure and true.
3. Tell me, show me a true reflection of my life so that I know what you discover.
4. Help me, reveal to me how my crookedness can be corrected, and lead me the right way.

Its only when we really understand that God loves us that we will invite His investigation. Do you desire God to dig into the depths of your life, or are you only interested in a surface Savior? When we let Christ road test our character we will discover the kind of Christian that we really are. Not only does God know us, but He knows us better than we know ourselves and He loves us too much to leave us alone. Invite God to sift you and show you your sin and the things that grieve Him, or bring pain to others. As He exposes your flaws own them completely and confess them don’t try to justify or cover them up. Are you going to be willingly accountable to the Almighty?  A good person desires to know the worst of himself as Socrates once said the “unexamined life is not worth living.” We have a God who knows us completely, thinks of us constantly, and searches us conclusively, as a result instead of feeling spied on we should feel watched over. J.I. Packer writes this: “I am never out of God’s mind. There is no moment when His eye is off me, or His attention distracted from me, no moment when His care falters…There is tremendous relief in knowing that His love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion Him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself.” Our security and confidence comes because God has sifted our hearts so that no skeleton of sin can come tumbling out of the hidden closet of our past. David reminds us that the unexamined life is not biblical. If we don’t spend time sitting at the feet of the Father allowing Him to examine our hearts we will never live our lives to their full potential. Why not take some time right now to let Him search you and show you the real reflection of your heart.

Psalm 139:1-6; 23-24

“You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. 5 You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. 23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Psalm 139 ends with a plea, a call for God to search us and show us our hearts, to point out the putrid and lead us to purity. But we will never ask the Almighty to search and show us our hearts if we don’t trust Him. That’s why David starts by reminding us that:

• God knows us completely (1-6)

When you think about being loved there are always two things present. Right now I want you to take a moment and think about a time in your life when you felt truly loved. May be by a parent, a friend, your spouse or a time when you felt truly loved by God. Whatever it was as you think back on that time you when you were loved what do you see, what made you feel loved? While the circumstances in these love moments differ for each of us there are at least two common and cherished golden threads woven into the fabric of each one. We were known, more than just on a surface level but on a deeper level and second we were accepted. Despite what they knew they still chose to love us and remain committed to us. In order for love to be complete we must be both known and accepted. Because to be accepted without being known is foolish, while to be known but not be accepted is fearful. When it comes to being known and accepted there is no one who knows us more thoroughly and accepts us more completely than our Creator. Psalm 139:1-6 tells us that God knows us completely, all of our actions, words, and thoughts. Not only does God know what we have done but He knows why we did it. The sad reality is that while most of us say we believe that God knows for many this is just a head knowledge not a heart knowing. As a result we end up operating on two levels. While we say that we believe that God knows everything about us, on a practical day-to-day level we actually live as if we can keep secrets from God. This is probably because we are fearful that if God really knew everything about us, He would reject not receive us. When it comes to God many of us have an intellectual understanding instead of an interpersonal one, head knowledge not a heart knowing. Verse 1 reminds us that God knows us because He searches us: “You have searched me, Lord, and you know me” The Hebrew here means to carefully examine or explore. It carries the idea of digging into the details and uncovering what is unseen. God is not satisfied with a surface knowing He searches deeper to discover what is below the surface. David is saying that God knows him penetratingly because He has peered deep into his life. Verses 2-5 tell us exactly what God knows about us:

1. He knows what we do

Verse 2 says: “You know when I sit and when I rise…” God knows not only when we sit down but also when we stand up. These two opposites of sitting and standing represent all of our actions throughout the day. In other words God knows all of our actions as Proverbs 5:21 says: “For a man’s ways are in full view of the Lord, and He examines all his paths.” We have a God who knows every move that we make. Not only does He know what we do but:

2. He knows what we think

Verse 2 continues by saying: “You perceive my thoughts from afar.” This means that God knows what we think even before we think it! Just as Jeremiah 17:10 says: “I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind…” God knows what we are thinking, He doesn’t just search He sees and yet He still loves us anyway. Not only does He know what we do and think but:

3. He knows where we go

Verse 3 says: “You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.” This word “discern” means to sift as one would do to get the grain. We have a God knows where we go because He can sift and see what is really going on. As God sifts through the sand of our life He knows the good and the bad. He sees it all even those things we think are done in secrete. Not only does God know what we do, what we think and where we go but:

4. He knows what we say

Verse 4 says: “Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord.” We have a God who not only hears everything that we say but He also knows what we’re going to say before we can even form the words with our tongue. Sometimes we don’t even know what is going to come out of our mouth until we say it, but God knows. Not only does God know what we do, what we think, where we go and what we say but:

5. He knows what we need

Verse 5 says: “You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.” It’s here as David describes God’s powerful hand of protection that he uses some imagery from war. David was a warrior and he knew all about strategic battle plans and how to surround a city. David understood that he was surrounded by God’s secure knowledge and understanding. Instead of feeling trapped by God’s knowledge of his every thought, word, and deed David felt secure. He knew that God surrounded, that God went before and behind and it was God’s hand that kept him from harm. The same is true for us God’s pervasive presence serves to protect and provide not inhibit our lives. David also finds the truth that God knows him intimately incomprehensible as he says in verse 6: “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.” David struggles to comprehend God’s understanding let alone describe the depth of God’s personal knowledge of every area of his life: His every action, every thought, every trip, every word, and every need. When we ponder the greatness of God’s knowledge, like David we too will become overwhelmed. Wonder and worship go hand in hand, for they are the proper response to God’s glory and greatness. Amazement should lead us to awe, which should draw us to adoration. This was Paul’s response in Romans 11:33-36: “Oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen.” Take some time today to ponder the greatness of God, and then take time to thank Him for His lavish love. Instead of being worried and concerned over God’s omniscience be comforted, because you have a God who not only knows you but loves you.