During our time of trouble and heartache we sometimes ask this question but do we expect an answer? According to Psalm 139 we can find God all around us in any situation that we find ourselves in. Here are a few verses from this Psalm to encourage you and me today:
You Have Searched Me and Known Me
For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
1 O LORD, You have searched me
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
You understand my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down;
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
You know all about it, O LORD.
5 You hem me in behind and before;
You have laid Your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
7 Where can I go to escape Your Spirit?
Where can I flee from Your presence?
8 If I ascend to the heavens, You are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, You are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle by the farthest sea,
10 even there Your hand will guide me;
Your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me,
and the light become night around me”—
12 even the darkness is not dark to You,
but the night shines like the day,
for darkness is as light to You.
13 For You formed my inmost being;a
You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise You,
for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Marvelous are Your works,
15 My frame was not hidden from You
when I was made in secret,
when I was woven together
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all my days were written in Your book
and ordained for me
before one of them came to be.
This isn’t the entire Psalm but it gives us an overview of the way David looked at and thought about God and Who He is. God is not some prating old man or a genie like many try to make Him out to be. He is the Creator of everything and He needs nothing from us…but He does want our fellowship. Do we owe Him our fellowship? YES! Our next breath is in His hands, our next heartbeat is also in His hands. Everything that we live for and work toward should be in His hands. If your heart belongs to Him and you’ve accepted Him as your Savior then live like it!
Don’t walk around saying that you are a Christian and then go home or to a bar and drink alcoholic beverages. I’ve done this but it still tarnishes your witness toward others even if you are drinking at home, your family sees it and your Father in heaven sees it too. God is your Redeemer and your Creator so turn to Him for your relaxing times and your refreshing time by getting into His Word and learning from the One Who created you and knows you better than you know yourself.
25 For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: 26 And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: 27 Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me. Job 19:25-27 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/job.19.25-27.KJV
Something that an atheist said a few years ago has brought this to mind today. You’ve heard this possibly because it has been on YouTube since about 2009. I also noticed when I was looking it up this morning that the man, Penn Jillette, has become a Christian. Here is the video, which I think I have shared before, and as one of the comments on YouTube said “that is the best 5 minute sermon I’ve ever heard”:
He is speaking about a Gideon who came up after his show and talked with him and gave him a Gideon’s New Testament with the Psalms. I pray that you will watch this video and take to heart what he is saying, especially about heaven and hell. We are living in some fearful times and because we are living very close to the “end of the age”, be careful to search your life and your heart. If there is any doubt about whether you belong to Jesus and He belongs to you, please seek Him and ask Him into your heart.
Have you ever noticed these two words: listen and silent
They contain the same number of letters and even the same letters as the other but they are arranged in a different order. Both are useful in a time of hurt and pain. When you need to listen, be silent. You can’t hear much when you are talking or listening to music or watching a video because your attention is usually on the conversation or the video.
God has given us His Word, the Bible, to be able to seek and to know Him and His ways. Leaving it on a shelf or under some other books doesn’t help us to know Him at all. Open your Bible if you have one. Get one if you don’t. Read it and learn about our loving God. While it is true that He is a vengeful God and a jealous God, He is also loving and compassionate. He sent His own Son, Jesus, to die for us…in our place to pay the penalty for our sins. We may not understand His ways at first, but if you read the Bible and ask Him to reveal Himself to you, you will begin to understand.
God loves each of us but He sees and knows every thought and every deed that we do before we finally decide to believe in Him for our salvation. Once we have asked for Jesus to come in and cleanse our hearts, those previous sins in our life are wiped away and God doesn’t dwell on them ever again. We do, but they have been removed as far as the East is from the West. Give Jesus a chance in your life, be silent while you seek Him in the Bible, and pray for Him to reveal His will for your life. Listen to His wisdom and you will find it.
God’s will for you is only found when you read His Word and learn more about Him because His will for each of us is found in it.
So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord , and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown. And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes. Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die. But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips. Job 2:7-10 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/job.2.7-10.KJV
When the Pharisee, Nicodemus, came to Jesus at night He told him that you must be born again. Nicodemus couldn’t believe at first what Jesus was saying. “I can’t go back into the womb and be born again!”, Jesus told him that He was speaking of a spiritual rebirth. “What does that mean?” he asked. Jesus told him that to be born of the spirit meant to believe in his heart that He was the Messiah, the Son of God. Not believe in your head through knowledge but to commit your heart and your life daily to following Him. This commitment cannot be made because of your knowledge of the Bible or even your knowledge of Jesus. You may have a degree in Bible studies from a seminary or a college but if you have never truly given your heart to Jesus, confessing your sins to Him…you are not saved. This is something that is totally between you and God. I don’t know your heart, only God knows for sure, but until you have felt your heart break and you know that you need Jesus as your Savior you will never truly give your heart to Him.
The Holy Spirit of God can touch your heart and your mind and you will know that you need Jesus as your Savior. Many people feel this touch and then decide that they will do it later. You are not guaranteed a “later”! You don’t know if you will even be alive tomorrow! I could die in a car accident today or you could yourself, no one knows for sure how much longer we have in this life. We make plans for a weekend outing or a vacation for a few months from now but we are only hoping that we will be able to go on that trip. We don’t have a guarantee that we will be alive next week or next month, but many of us make plans far in advance regardless.
I have heard while watching a TV program that some celebrities have read the Bible completely through from Genesis to the book of Revelation and that may be true. But…reading God’s Word doesn’t change your heart unless the Holy Spirit reaches down and touches your heart first. If that doesn’t happen or it hasn’t happened then reading the Bible is like reading any other book. It only gives you knowledge. The spiritual aspect of the Bible doesn’t come into your mind or your heart unless the Holy Spirit breaks your heart and you realize that you need Jesus Christ as your Savior right now! When the Holy Spirit touches your heart, God gives you enough faith to know that you need Jesus because without faith His Word doesn’t mean anything to you.
Without even a small amount of faith you can’t please God in any way! Your life as a Christian cannot begin without a small amount of faith, trying to do it on your own will fail every time. Your strength is not enough. Peter and John and all of the disciples could not have started the church that Jesus told them to do without the Holy Spirit’s anointing. They couldn’t do it with their own strength. Jesus even prayed the night before His crucifixion, “Father, let this cup pass from Me!”, His human mind and body were terrified of the punishment that He knew was coming in just a few hours. But…He said, “Nevertheless, let Thy will be done.”. He submitted to the will of God that His sacrifice for each of us was the only way to pay the penalty of sin for every person that would accept Him as their Savior.
If you have felt the touch of the Holy Spirit on your heart and you know that you need Jesus as your Savior, don’t turn away from Him until you have asked Him to come into your life and into your heart and save you. Ask Him for His forgiveness and to make you a new creation in His Kingdom. We may not live past the next hour or even the night tonight so make this decision today while you can. Please do this before it is too late. Jesus loves you enough that He gave His life for yours, don’t turn away from Him today.
Many people seem to think that this means you can get everything you want from God, but that’s not the message in this verse. The message is when you desire God and His ways more than your own, He will give you the desires of your heart. In other words, when your desires and God’s desires for you line up together you will get the assured promises that He wants for you.
Living your life here as if God owes you something is the biggest lie that Satan ever put into the world. God doesn’t owe us anything but we owe Him everything! He provides the air that we breathe and the sunlight for our world to produce food along with the rain to grow all of the vegetables and herbs which make our food taste good. Seek your salvation in Jesus Christ and your appreciation for Him will be more than you can understand. He gives us the joy that our soul seeks every day and the assurance that eternity is with Him.
The Living Message of Christ 