Graceful Truth

GOD AND ME

May 20, 2024

GOD AND ME


The continual plan of Satan is to seek to separate us from God. Our downfall from the Garden has been to choose to listen to him and follow him. As we do, we miss the most important relationship of life. God’s design is that He would be with us always … and we would live in the continual, conscious awareness of our God.

HIS PRESENCE

God is present, but we can be oblivious to Him. We can only experience the depth of His presence when we recognize our sin and need and, in humility, trust in Christ to save us and bring us near. The turning point in daily life comes when we realize He longs to be with us more than we do with Him, and we seek to be continually and consciously aware of His presence … drawing on all that He is and experiencing Him.

Psalm 139 is filled with David’s understanding of God’s presence. Perhaps no one has ever known Him better. Notice these observations he makes ... and pray they become your own.

THE LORD KNOWS EVERYTHING ABOUT ME

  1. The Lord has searched me and known me (Vs. 1).
  2. He knows everything about me. He knows my thoughts, ways, and words before I speak them (Vs. 2-4).

EVEN KNOWING ME, HE SURROUNDS ME WITH HIS PRESENCE AND LAYS HIS HAND ON ME

  1. He has wrapped His presence around me (behind and before) and laid His eyes and hand on me (Vs. 5).
  2. His continual presence is a wonderfully overwhelming realization (Vs. 6)

I CAN NOT (AND NEED NOT) RUN OR HIDE FROM HIS PRESENCE

  1. I can go nowhere away from His Spirit and His presence. He is everywhere (Vs. 7-10).
  2. His land will lead me everywhere, and His right hand will hold me (Vs. 10).
  3. Darkness doesn’t hide me, for it is not dark to Him (Vs. 12).

HE WONDERFULLY MADE ME AND HAS PURPOSE IN MY DESIGN AND EACH ORDAINED DAY

  1. He made me, forming my inward parts in my mother’s womb (Vs. 13)
  2. He made me fearfully and wonderfully. I was skillfully wrought by Him. He saw my unformed substance (Vs. 14-15).
  3. He wrote in His book all the days that were ordained for me before they even existed (Vs. 16)

HE’S WITH ME, AWAKE OR ASLEEP

  1. When I am asleep or awake, He is with me and I with Him (Vs. 18)

I MUST GLADLY EMBRACE HIS PRESENCE AND HIS CONTINUAL REFINING WORK AND LEADERSHIP

  1. I pray that God will search me and know my heart, try me, and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any hurtful way in me and lead me in the everlasting way (Vs. 23-24).

We do not need to conjure up His presence. He IS present. Through Christ (and only through Him) we can become aware and live with a conscious awareness of His presence. This thought comforts us but also, at times, should convict us and lovingly restrict and direct us.

But be eternally aware of this: His presence is our greatest gift and nearness our greatest good!

 



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