Journal Ps 10-11 (all references are from the ESV; changes in punctuation and notes are mine)
Scripture: “The LORD is in his holy temple; the LORD’s throne is in heaven;
His eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man. The LORD tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence…
For the LORD is righteous; he loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold his face.” Excerpted from Ps 11:4-7
Observation: This is testimony of God’s holiness and omniscience.
Application: Sometimes it is difficult to extract stuff from the scriptures; I must really think hard about it.
Take testing by God for instance. My first impulse is that I am being tested for a pass/fail grade; God is testing me to see how well I have done.
That might be reasonable except that God is omniscient—he sees everything from before to beyond. God is aware of my conduct and life 10 minutes from now right now—he does NOT have to wait on the clock to tick.
Therefore, with that incommunicable attribute firmly in mind of his Omniscience, I can kick the idea to the curb that God does not EVER wait on the clock to advance to experience any future.
If I embrace that one attribute fully, how does that change any expression I have about God intersecting with my life? Even if I cannot see what my future is like, God sees it—not can see it; not will see it. He sees it. Right now.
How about this? God sees my deeds with his eyes open. God even sees with his eyelids closed.
Back to the subject of testing: God has no need of testing me to see if I am going to fail or not—he already knows. You know who doesn’t know and needs to know the pass/fail grade?
Me.
True that. If I am serious about PURSUING Jesus and his holiness, I want to know and be aware of my shortfalls in performance.
Wanting to know this, I should and must ask the Holy Spirit to reveal these things to my awareness SO THAT I can review and/or record them to make a biblically focused response—If I don’t have a plan to execute, I cannot obtain a result. That is part of being a disciple in truth and not just in name.
Prayer: Father, I want to please you and feel your pleasure towards me. You are pleased with righteousness; it says so in the scripture above.
It also says you are not pleased with wickedness, in fact, you hate it. How do you deal with me when I do wicked, hateful, violent things? I know grace and mercy, but your omniscient patience rules the day!
AMEN.
Ricky Two Shoes