Everywhere we see video cameras recording our entrance into shops, banks, and recording our speed in cars.
Identity cards.

Our families know us.

How we are when we get up and lie down at night.

- even know what we will say in a particular circumstance.

The Lord sees much more.
Ps 139:1-4:  1 O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord. 

Knows and understands.

`sifting' - winnowing, sifting, separates the good from the bad in us.

One day you are honest, generous, pray, read your bible, 
The next, you are bad tempered,  unreasonable, lazy, cowardly, and you don't pray at all.

Which is the real me?

Is it when I am having a good day? 
   or when I am having a bad day?
Is it me at church, or at work, or with my family, 
  or me in  my inmost private thoughts?

Who am I?

Some would say:

There is a relationship that defines your true identity. 
Relationship with God - is the real you and me.
When we go home, and to your room and you talk to God. 

The person you are there - when there is no crowd - is the person you really are. 
We were made for that relationship. 

Without God our identity floats from one thing to another. 

Until that day when we get alone with God, doubt and hypocrisy will always be with us.

Alone with God, means alone before the foot of the cross of Christ.
In that relationship with Jesus will you be able to be true to yourself and others in your daily life.
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The knowledge that God knows us so intimately can make us wonder and worship:
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. 

 Or try to escape: 
7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 

Desire to flee - Adam hid.
Some say `I would like to believe .. ' but there is the opposite feeling too.

May be all of us know something of wanting to be free from the Lord?
Child running away, then back to parents.

Reassuring that God is always near.
Rom 8: `Nothing will separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.'

I find these next verses a great strength for those of us who travel to far off places - even dangerous places.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far  side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 
True even if the dangerous place is in space as an astronaut.
8a If I go up to the heavens, you are there; 

James Irwin.
• 8 out of 10 of the moon walkers are now believers.
• Many put down the journey into space as a significant moment.
• Looking into the universe and back to planet earth - they realised God exists and can be known.
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8b if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 

`depths' - hades, or place of death.

11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," 12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. 

Death is not extinction into darkness. 
N.T. will reveal that Christ descended into hades and rose again.
His presence has gone into the depths of human hopelessness and brought us back to the light.

Therefore no escape even in death.
Comfort for the humble but a terrible warning for the wicked 
 - death will not save them from the justice of God.

Death is not the end is a warning to proudly wicked and comfort to the humble.

How can I be so confident of this?

All I have to do is contemplate the wonder of creation - especially my own human body. 
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 

I may pretend to be an atheist but `in my heart of hearts' I know I was created for a purpose.

Eyes. brain. skin, bone structure- 
 The body is a masterpiece of exquisite design.  Beautifully "engineered," it is governed by several hundred systems of control  each interacting with and affecting the other.  Our brain has 10 billion nerve cells to record what we see and hear.  Our skin has more than 2 million tiny sweat glands  about 3000 per square inch  all part of the intricate system which keeps his body at an even temperature.  A "pump" in our chest makes our blood travel 168 million miles a day  equivalent of 6720 times around the world!  The lining of our stomach contains 35 million glands secreting juices which aid the process of digestion.  And these are but a few of the involved processes and chemical wonders which operate to sustain our life.

Bob Hope once said, "Today my heart beat 103,369 times, my blood traveled 168 million miles, (capiliary vessels), I breathed 23,400 times, I inhaled 438 cubic feet of air, I ate 3 pounds of food, drank 2.9 pounds of liquid, I perspired 1.43 pints, I gave off 85.3 degrees of heat, I generated 450 tons of energy, I spoke 4,800 words, I moved 750 major muscles, my nails grew .01714 inches, and I exercised 7 million brain cells.  Gee, but I'm tired." 

17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.

13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.

The greatest masterpiece in the whole creation.
Made in the image of God.

Cathedral.
God wants us to be his dwelling place.

That is why he won't let us go, and keeps searching us - he wants us to be fit for him as a place for him to dwell  - so that his light can flow out into all creation.

But, there is something wrong.
The world has so much evil in it! 

The psalmist sees the troubles of the world.
Why does God not get rid of it all?

19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men! 20 They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. 21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord, and abhor those who rise up against you? 22 I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.

But There Is A Problem.

As He Reflects He Realises That He Too Is Far From Perfect.
If God Were To Slay The Wicked What About him?
Could He Stand?
Could You And I Stand?

To Just Slay The Wicked Is Not So Simple For All Have Sinned...
What Is More God Has Read It All Even Before We Were Born.
16b All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
There is a book that keeps a record of all our doings and thoughts.
Rev 20:12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened.

Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. (NIV) 

The `books' keep a record of our actions.
 but that does not mean that all is fixed, for their is another book of grace.
Promise of the gospel is that God wipes the record clean and writes our names in the new book of life.

We must invite him to abide with us - 
He already knows our inner thoughts, but are we prepared to allow him to remain and cleanse us?

The psalmist knows that too and so he prays:
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (NIV)

He knew that God has prepared a way of forgiveness and new life for all people but he didn't know the details.
We do know the way.

John 3:16, 17
16 "For God so loved ...  17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. (NIV) 

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