Verses: Psalm 139Sample

INTRO

Psalm 139 is one of the best-known psalms in the Bible, and the truths found in it have brought great comfort to countless people throughout the centuries. This psalm of David is called “a poetic triumph” by one commentator and “one of the most notable of the sacred hymns” by 19th-century British preacher Charles Spurgeon. Within this psalm, we find David masterfully holding both the soaring height of God’s attributes and the infinite depth of His knowledge of humanity. This psalm’s key and defining word is the verb “know.” Not just a cold and lifeless knowledge, but an intimate and relational knowing that is almost overwhelming. In this psalm, it’s less about us knowing God, and rather God knowing us. The God of the universe has a deep and personal knowledge of us! Psalm 139 seeks to press that reality into our hearts and plant it deep within us.

We’ll walk through this beautiful psalm over ten days. By the end of these ten days, we hope you’ll have taken steps towards memorizing and meditating on this psalm and making this a regular rhythm of your spiritual journey. Even more so, our prayer is that you would come to know and trust in the intimate knowledge our loving Father has of you and that you would come to know Him all the more!

DEVOTION

On our first day, as we work our way through Psalm 139, we’ll focus on the first three verses that stand as a doorway to this psalm and set the table for what is to come. David declares this:

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.

While there is so much to see in these verses, we’ll focus on two aspects of God:

1) The God Who Reveals

Though not true of every psalm, David begins this particular psalm with God and not himself, his situation, or his emotions. Often it’s easy to get distracted by all the things swirling around us and the voices chiming and vying for our attention, but David sets his gaze on Yahweh, the God who created him. The particular word for God that David used is the word Yahweh which is tied to God revealing Himself in a very personal way to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3. When you see the name “LORD” written in all capital letters in the Bible, it is this name that it refers to, and this name for God appears over 6,800 times in the Old Testament! David starts this psalm with the one who started all things, the great Author and Perfecter of our faith. This is the God of Psalm 139 that David was looking to.

2) The God Who Searches and Knows

As he sets his gaze on the LORD, David realizes he wasn’t scrambling to try to get God’s attention, but rather God’s gaze was already set on him. Our God is never ambivalent, uninterested, or engrossed in something else. He’s on a perpetual and never-ending search and rescue mission, seeking us out even when we’re unaware that we’re lost! The very word for “search” is tied to digging and excavating. It’s not a shallow or quick uncovering but a thorough one that goes down to the deepest recesses of our lives. God is the great Excavator and Digger and after something real in us even when we’re unaware of what is underneath the surface of our actions and intentions.

Because He searches us, He also knows us, which leads to this next question: are there boundaries to the knowledge of God? The psalm begins by declaring God’s knowledge to be limitless. It is not stated doctrinally but rather doxologically. The psalmist worships the God who knows all things; His knowledge is absolute, including even human thoughts, not limited to external “see-able” behavior. 1 John 3:20 states God “knows everything.” He is the King of the universe whose eyes and mind see and know all things. As you lifted your head from your pillow this morning, His eye was upon you. As you go about your day, He sees every step, motive, and attitude. Across planet Earth, there is no crack or crevice or person unknown or unseen. The God of the Bible knows, and Psalm 139 points us back to the reality that God is truly the omniscient God (He knows everything)!

God knows us. Let that sink in. He knows us! Not only does God know all things generally, but he also knows all people personally. Often we can keep truths at a distance through broad generalizations but never consider how these great truths affect us practically. One might say, “God loves the world,” but have a much harder time saying, “God loves me.” Have you ever wondered if God sees and knows you individually? Does He care about you? This psalm resoundingly tells us, “Yes! God knows me.” Not only does the God of the Bible know in general, but He knows you personally. Let me repeat that: He knows you. Not only is God’s knowledge absolute, but it’s personal. It’s not static, but active, one that searches out our path, one that’s acquainted not simply with one or two of our ways but with all our ways.

This truth generally brings about two vastly different responses, primarily determined by one’s relationship with God. The first response by those who do not know God or love Him is one of great terror. We like our secrecy, and God’s omniscience crashes our dark secretive parties. There is not only a God who knows but also a perfect Judge who not only can judge us based on our external actions but one who judges us based on our internal thoughts. If you are at odds with this Judge, this God, then this truth is terrifying! The second response to this truth from those who know and love God is one of incredible comfort. Have you ever wondered if anyone knows? Does anyone even care? God does. His omniscience is accompanied by great compassion and mercy. We see this compassion primarily in God’s Son Jesus, who came to earth to rescue and redeem a people for Himself. It was precisely because He was acquainted with all our ways and knew how bad off we really were that He left heaven, took on flesh, and died in our place.

In his classic book “Knowledge of the Holy,” AW Tozer said:

“And to us who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope that is set before us in the gospel, how unutterably sweet is the knowledge that our Heavenly Father knows us completely. No talebearer can inform on us, no enemy can make an accusation stick; no forgotten skeleton can come tumbling out of some hidden closet to abash us and expose our past; no unsuspected weakness in our characters can come to light to turn God away from us, since He knew us utterly before we knew Him and called us to Himself in the full knowledge of everything that was against us.”

Praise the all-knowing God who knew you at your worst and sent His Son to lay down His life for you!

Memorize & Meditate

1. Pray David’s words from Psalm 119 to God: “Open my eyes to see wonderful things in your law.” Ask God to reveal Himself to you in His Word, that you might know Him more. To truly know Him!
2. Read Psalm 139:1-3. What stands out? What’s encouraging? What’s confusing?
3. Write out verses 1-3 in your journal. The intention here is to slow down a little with the passage and linger.
4. Listen to Psalm 139:1-3 by Robbie Seay.
5. Try to sit in silence for 2-5 minutes as you meditate on the reality that God knows you in and out. After the time of silence, reflect on these questions: How does the reality of God’s knowledge affect you? In what ways is it scary? In what ways does it comfort you? What does it mean for your current reality in life or season?
6. Throughout your day and as you’re able, listen to Psalm 139:4-5. You can listen here on YouVersion, all streaming platforms, or the Verses: Melody of God’s Word app.

Credits:
Song by Robbie Seay.
Devotional by Joel Limpic.