He Knows Me, Yet Loves Me

Soap August 29, 2010


Scripture:

Psalm 139:1
O LORD, you have examined my heart
and know everything about me.

Observation:

Our sovereign LORD is as much a personal God to us as He is perfect. He is not a God who stands apart from His creation, but a loving and merciful God who only wants the best for His people (Isaiah 62:5). I find it amazing that with all of the Lord’s wisdom and power and greatness that He even takes the time to know each one of us personally and puts into place those things that we need and are best for our salvation (Hebrews 4:16). We are all unique beings with our own personal cross we must bear—one that is made to fit our strength, and one that we can manage with the help of our LORD, who knows first hand what its like to carry the weight of a cross so heavily burdened with all the sins of the world that only He, our Mighty LORD and Savior, could bear and live through it. How wonderful it is to have a God who knows us fully and yet, loves us so dearly with a love so great that He allowed mere men to humiliate Him, the Creator, and be nailed to a wooden cross to die.

Application:

I spent a good deal of my life despising some of those hidden things about myself that I could not share with anyone, not even with the One who created me. To be honest, I thought that these areas of my life where hidden so deep that even God Himself had no idea what they were. And with each day the guilt and shame I had to carry kept getting heavier and heavier until eventually they took their toll and I collapsed under the weight. But while I was laying in the muck of my life, buried in the burdens that were suffocating me and oblivious to the grace of God, the LORD reached down at the last moment to pull me up and slowly, one by one, began to remove those burdens that had wearied me to the brink of death. My dear friends, we were not meant to carry our burdens alone, for when we do, they always become too great for us to bear. I cannot explain what a relief I find in knowing that our God is someone I can trust with my deepest and darkest moments; someone who not only has the power, but is always willing to remove any and all of those burdens that tend to weigh me down and threaten my life.
We have a loving God, my friends, who loves us in spite of all our deep dark secrets and He is a God who will never change (Malachi 3:6).

Prayer:

O Lord God, how humbling it is for me to know how great your love for me is when I realize that you have loved me even when I did not love you—even when all that I did and thought brought you sadness. At times it is so hard to understand your love for me because I am so unworthy, but even in my unworthiness, I am thankful for your love and understanding. Your love and unchangeableness, dear LORD, is a blessed mystery that I can, with confidence, put all of my hope in.

Zakery Daniel