Sunday, April 18, 2010

2010 – April 18 – Invasion of Privacy

Study from God’s Word 1st Chronicles 26: 12 – 32; 1st Chron. 27: 1 – 34; 1st Chron. 28: 1 – 21; 1st Chron. 29: 1 – 22 … Passage for Reflection: 1st Chronicles 28: 9… NIV 9 "And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever.

My Journal for Today: The age of “Big Brother” is upon us; and we feel like we need to fight for our rights to privacy; don’t we? But in reality, as believers in the One and only omniscient God, our privacy in the world – or lack thereof – is the least of our mental worries. As F. LaGard Smith, in my devotional book for today, quotes: ”If I am too embarrassed to tell even my closest family and friends what I’m thinking about, dare I allow [those thoughts] to enter my mind for an observing God to see?”

OUCH!!!
That personal assertion really gets to the heart of our faith and understanding of the God we know, love, obey, serve, and glorify, doesn’t it? If we believe in the same God King David came to know and love (and, of course, we do!), we’ve got to do all we can to live by the truth that our God knows EVERYTHING we’re thinking – and why we’re thinking it – before we even think it. My friend, we have no private thoughts as Christians; and we have no right to privacy in God’s world as well.

And with this in mind, what I am thinking right now, if it does not glorify God is a breech in the relationship I have with my LORD; and that, I expect, is why the Apostle Paul wrote what he did, inspired by God’s Spirit, in Philippians 4: 8, where we, as believers in Christ, are charged to – and given God’s enabling grace to – think on only things which honor our LORD. So, as a Christian, who also knows the truth of God’s word, through Solomon, in Prov. 23: 7, which states [in the NKJV], As a man thinks in his heart, so is he …, I must realize that I will never have any real privacy in my life. And so, I need to live as an open book, realizing that all I think, say, and do is out there for God to know even before I think it, say it, or do it. And when I live like that and live for my LORD in what I think and become, I will live to honor Him in this life and into the next.

My Prayer for Today: LORD, my thoughts are always known to You. I pray they will become Yours. Amen

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