WORD TO THE CHURCH – AUG 2018
Psalm 139: You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My 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. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, 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. If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty! They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you? I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.
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.
Church, God knows our every thought. When we come into church with something that offends us. Something someone said or has done that we don’t agree with, then generally we tune that person out. Pretty well all the people here know what I mean, like when your wife is talking to you about something, then, when she is done she looks at you and says, ‘you didn’t hear a word I said’. If we have a problem with a brother or sister we should talk to them about it, not talk about them. Verse 23 & 24 – It does not say anything about you or me pointing out anyone’s faults or something that offends you. That’s God’s job, to know their heart and if there is something that needs changed, he will change it! There’s an old saying ‘you can’t push the rope”. Let’s try and pull the rope in the same direction and believe God will move mountains when we do. Let’s see the church grow like he planned for it to do.