God the Searcher

A young friend invited us to watch an award-winning documentary about a refugee camp. Thousands had fled from their homeland searching for freedom and finding that life in the camp was as dangerous and unpleasant as the life they fled. It was heart-wrenching even though some of them eventually left the camp for a better life.

My word today is SEARCH and the verses are about God searching us and what He is looking for. He sees that all of humanity has an enemy, not always persecutors and terrible living conditions. That enemy is sin and it is eternally destructive. Because of this, He wants us to turn from that way and follow Him.

In the OT, David speaks to his son who will be the next king:

1 Chronicles 28:9. “And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever.”

God looks for a heart that looks for Him, a person who knows they cannot do life as they should without His input and direction. Sadly, one aspect of sin is trying to fake righteousness, to look good in front of people thinking that God will see our ‘best efforts’ and that will be enough. However, in Job 13:9, Job asks his friends, “Will it be well with you when he searches you out? Or can you deceive him, as one deceives a man?”

This is an important question. The psalmist knew the answer. He writes in Psalm 139:1–6:

“O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.”

The author of this psalm invites God in verse 23-24, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”

I’ve learned two important things about asking God to do as the psalmist asked. One is that this prayer is almost always quickly answered. I’ve even told people that if they pray it, they should duck!

The other is that my heart can fool me. I might think my ideas are in line with God’s ideas, but when He lays bare my motivations, sometimes He exposes how I’ve been trying to run my own life. The ideas are not necessarily evil. Some of them seemed godly, yet they came from me, not Him.

As Jeremiah 17:9–10 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” and “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”

God also searches for those who will follow Him. The prophet Ezekiel quotes Him in 34:11. “For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out.” We are lost without Him searching us out for Himself.

Jesus also said it in Matthew 18:12. “What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?”

When we become children of God, God searches our hearts and intercedes for us according to His will (see Romans 8:27). He also says that our eyes and ears and hearts cannot imagine what is in store for us but “these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:9-11)

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. All of this tells me that the condition of my heart toward God is far more important than the things that I do, particularly if some of my ideas are self-rooted and not His will for me. Listening and obeying surpasses even the best of my efforts. In the end of things, God says all His people will know that He “searches minds and hearts, and will give to each of us according to our works.” (See Revelation 2:23) My rewards will be based on His searching ability, not on what anyone, including me, sees on the surface.