Search me O God and know my heart
We sometimes forget that we need the Holy Spirit’s understanding to know the scriptures, or what HIs Word is saying to us…for our hearts are deceitful (fraudulent or crooked)
Jer 17:9-10 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins (will), even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.”
(Years ago, when I was a child,, I was at my cousin’s house…she was a lot older than I,…and she was going to make a special sauce for the cake she had made. I was around and heard her say….”This recipe looks like it would be a good one. I think I will try it.”
Well, let me tell you….my cousin was raised in my esteem,…a lot! How could you tell by just looking at the numbers, and the ingredients of a recipe…and tell it would be good? She was a superstar to me!
Of course, now, after some “experience” myself….I know what she meant. And it still pleases me, when I can do the same….read a recipe and tell whether it will be good or not.
But it struck me the other day….as Christians….newly born ones….or older….are we acquiring the “experience” of hearing what the Word of God is saying to us? or what He is telling us to do?
Well, He has just that help for us…. if we listen to the Holy Spirit, who shows us exactly what it means to us! The truth of it.
What a blessing He is! What a provision for us! To know for ourselves…both what the Lord is saying to us…and for the grace [ability] He gives to do it…..for that is exactly what we need.)
The Psalmist writes:
Psalm 139:23-24 “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
Search me….to examine intimately.
And as the Psalmist says in another verse in this psalm: “Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, Thou understandest my thought afar off.
Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.” (verses 2-3)
Thou knowest, O Lord…..so the Psalmist (and we should, too)…says…”search me….make intimate examination of me….of my heart….my inmost feelings and attitudes….and my thoughts.
For You can see the truth… if there be any wicked way in me”.
This is something we should do with the Lord, every now and again. Especially, when we begin to feel that there is a coldness in our hearts toward the Lord….let Him examine us.
(We are not called to search ourselves….but we are to honestly deal with what the Lord shows us….. the Lord is to search us.
I believe it takes the power of the Holy Spirit for us to get honest. We are not able of ourselves to do this….that is why we should cry…”Search me O God…”.)
Our ways are our usual mode of thinking,…planning,…looking at others,…and feeling about things. This is “our way”.
Isaiah 53:All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”
Isaiah 55:7 “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.”
What a tremendous Savior we have!
Christ, by the Holy Spirit will set us aside, to His Way….this is sanctification.
If we are yielded to the Holy Spirit in our everyday walk,…we will learn to see things from His viewpoint….and will learn to feel the way He does about things….and people.
And the Lord….has known us. Sometimes we say:
“Well, I have good reason to feel the way I do about so and so. Or about this place.”
And perhaps we do…..but when we become a child of God, He will lead us out of our reasons and feelings….into a “large place”….a place where we can stand toe to toe with our “enemies”…and be at peace….having the victory which is….His Way.
God has seen every action…in, for and against us.
Psalm 139:16-18 “Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in Thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.
How precious also are Thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them!
If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.”
We are not hidden….we have never been hidden from the eyes of God. This has reference to us being in our Mother’s womb….but it also is spiritually.
When we are first born again….we are being formed into His character…”in continuance”. He will lead us into all truth….and lead us out of ourselves. “…and lead me in the way everlasting.”
HIs is an everlasting Way….a Way and a Life built upon Truth and grace.
Let us give ourselves over to Him….and He will certainly lead us in His Way, everlasting.
Preaching, Teaching, and Notes 