Search Me, Know Me, Show Me

Psalm 139:23-24

Verse 24  See if there is any offensive way in me , and lead me in the way everlasting.

    Over the last couple of weeks we have talked a lot about abiding prayer.  We have talked about the types of prayers we should be praying and the kinds that we shouldn’t.  We have looked at how God desires our hearts to be when we pray and even how He wants us to pray alone and also with other believers.

    On this last day of focusing on prayer, let’s look at the words of David from Psalm 139.  In this psalm David speaks of how God is full of knowledge about him.  He knows that there is nowhere that he can go that God can’t see and guard him.  God has the same knowledge of us and this should bring us to the same place of praise and worship that it took David.

    We know that God knows us more than anyone else and yet how often do we think about that when we come to Him in prayer?  We need to come to Him in a way of knowing Him in His fullness.  We mentioned the other day that He watches over His children not as one that is awaiting the child to fail, but as One that is looking out for that child.  This is what David is saying in this psalm.  He knows that God is a loving and caring God.  He knows that God’s eyes are always on him.  And David prays, asking that God will help him be as diligent about the relationship.

    This is the same attitude we should be having as we seek to abide in Him.  We should be looking to get to know Him in an ever growing manner so that we can see what Paul wanted for the Ephesians “to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:18b-19)

    The closer we get to God, the more our relationship will deepen.  And the more it deepens the more we will long to be closer still.  That is why David finishes this psalm with a prayer that should be our prayer too.  We should want Him to search us and reveal to us the things that are offensive to Him because that is how we can find His way of life.  And when we are seeing His way of life, we can live lives of obedience and that means open communication lines with the Holy One, the God of all creation.

Making It Personal

    When was the last time that you asked God to show you the sins in your life?  How did you react to what He showed you?  Do you ask Him regularly to show you where you offend Him?

Making It Personal Kids

    Do you know when you sin against God?  Have you ever asked God to show you if you were sinning?  If He showed you something that was a sin, what would you do?

Closing Prayer

    Father, thank You for loving us so much that You want a relationship with us, mere humans.  We pray with David, the man after Your own heart, search us, God, and know our hearts; test us and know our anxious thoughts.  See if there is any offensive way in us, and lead us in the way everlasting.  In Jesus’ name, amen.