Day 4 – Lord, Search Me
Asking the all-knowing, all-present, all-powerful, all-righteous God to search us and see if he can find anything offensive within us might feel uncomfortable, even frightening. In a way, it is.
When you pray “Lord, search me”, you are inviting God to come and do surgery on your soul.
Yet David cried out, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24).
When you ask God to search you, you’re inviting the Holy Spirit to convict you of any unconfessed sin. You’re submitting to the Lord Jesus in applying his scalpel on any unChristlike attitude or behavior. You’re yielding to your Heavenly Father in disciplining you as a genuine son or daughter of God.
Do we dare pray: “God, is there anything between me and you? Just show me and I will confess it. Just show me and I will confront it.” And what if God says, “Yes, there is something you need to deal with”?
If God does bring up some matter, then you lay down on the operating table as it were, and let the Lord Jesus do surgery on your soul. He “will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26).
We often examine ourselves and confess our sins before taking the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 11:27-29). One Sunday morning before taking Communion, my “Lord, search me” prayer that day was rather weak.
The Holy Spirit was already convicting me of getting angry at a friend.
Before I could receive the bread and the cup, I noticed that I had dirt on my hand. Where had that dirt come from? I had no clue.
A verse flashed into my mind, “Who may ascend the mountain of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart” (Psalm 24:3-4).
I quickly sought out my friend, asked for forgiveness, and was reconciled (Matthew 5:23-24). God had given me a visual sign of my inner heart.
If you really want your heart to be clean before God, if you really want the Lord to transform your personality, if you really want the Spirit of God to purify you, then pray honestly and earnestly, “Lord, search me.”
Prayer: “Lord, as you search my heart, let me quickly find the joy of forgiveness.”
~ Pastor Dave
