(08-08-05) Fully Known - Psalm 139 (Penrodyn)

Psalm 139

O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. 2You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.

God’s knowledge of us is perfect – better than we know ourselves!

He knows our needs Matthew 6:25-34 (seek first the Kingdom)

Cerian and Elis – sometimes it’s guesswork; not with God!

5You hem me in— behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. 6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

Sometimes that knowledge can be scary, depending on our image of God at the time

7Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 9If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 11If I say, Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me, 12even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

Not that we spend our lives trying to avoid God (though some do), but there are those little moments when we might wish that God didn’t see all and know all

But also, there is nothing that we can do which has the ability to remove us from God’s love; Romans 8:38-9

“There’s nothing you can do to make God love you more; there’s nothing you can do to make God love you less.”

There is nothing in any of our pasts or future that can or have put up an immovable wall between us and God any more.

God promises that through His Son He has offered us life with Him, and that promise remains valid even though He knows each and every tiny detail of our lives – even the bits no-one else knows about; which we have kept secret.

Having to ‘spring-clean’ before Naomi comes home!

Deep-cleans in hospitals

The best, deepest clean a life could have

13For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

The full extent of our lives are known to Him. The past we have already lived and the future which lies ahead of us.

17How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.

This is, of course, only possible for God. No-one else could know us this well, and no-one else could love us the way He loves us.

19If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men! 20They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. 21Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD, and abhor those who rise up against you? 22I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.

So our lives should be lived fully for God – avoiding everything which takes us away from the path He would have us walk.

23Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.