Psalms 139:23+24 Search me, 0 God, and know my heart: try me, and
know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me
in the way everlasting.
	In our young people's meetings in recent weeks, we were concerned
with the important truth of knowing the Lord's will for our lives. There
are many aspects of this truth that we will not deal with this evening,
but rather, will concentrate on one key reality that must be a vital
part of each of our beings before the Lord Our God. It is the fact that
we need to have God actively searching our full beings in order for us
to go on in Him. As a fellowship, we have been encouraged to seek after
the Lord and to not settle for less than the fullest depths of Christ to
become reality in us. We are galvanized by the Apostle Paul as he writes
to the Phillipian Church in Chapter 3, verse 10 of his letter, after all
the fullness that his life had entailed, to desire to know Christ  That
I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of
his sufferings, being made conformable to his death. This knowledge of
Christ is paramount to our ongoing in Christ, the full realization that
it is no longer I that liveth, but Christ who liveth in me as stated in
the Letter to the Galatians. These are not new things that we are
hearing for the first time. They have been before us for years. Each of
us have given expression to them as the Holy Spirit has born witness in
our hearts to the full focus of God's plan and purpose in our lives. We
are not to settle for just the basic elements of Christianity. As
wonderful and miraculous as the workings of God surely are in our
salvation, and baptism in water, and in the Holy Spirit, they are but the
beginning of the eternal will of God for the expression of Himself
101	through His people, His church, the gathered and sanctified Body of
Christ, in the completeness of Christ.
	This	is the reason that our hearts must join those hearts of the
Apostle Paul, of King David, of James, of John, of Peter, of the members
of the early church, and of each of the believers who have not settled
for an idea of mere Christianity. There is so much more for us,
individually and corporately in Christ than even eternity will be able to 
contain. The fullness of God, and the complete glory of God are
indwelling the abundance of His working begun in the redemptive dealing
of the cross. He has issued forth in fullness into our lives, and
redeemed us unto Himself for His purpose. He has indwelled us by His
Holy Spirit with the expressed determination to bring us unto conformity
with Christ. He has justified us in Christ. He has sanctified us in
Christ. And, He has glorified us in Christ. All of this is true right
now in our lives. We are the ones who are in need of the heavenly vision
to see the actuality of these momentous verities being worked in us,
moment by moment, and day by day.
	    This brings us to the passage which has been before our young
people and myself for these past weeks. Search me, 0 God, and know my
heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way
in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. How does God searching our
hearts correlate to our greater and deeper knowledge of the Lord Jesus
Christ? Quite simply, we can not go on in Christ until He has proven
Himself fully in our hearts. He accomplishes this by making our entire
beings open before His light, and exposed unto us for all that is not of
Christ within us. Without a doubt, this is an utterly devastating
process that God has ordained for those whom He loves. It is the
thorough destruction of all that we hold near and dear of ourselves and
of our being completely and meticulously expunged of even the residue of
the old nature which so fully infested our lives. This is a necessary
accomplishment of God in our beings, for we need to have our focus
turned from us, from our insecurities, from our failings, from
inadequacies, from our desires, from our wants, and from our wishes,
unto Him. He needs to establish Christ as the focal point of everything
that we are, and everything that we think, and everything that we say, and
everything that we do. Christ needs to become the Rock upon Whom we
stand in each situation that He brings into our lives. Christ needs to
become entrenched as the victorious King of our lives through each
triumph that He constitutes in us. It is Christ Who needs to become the
abundant sufficiency of all our lives, moment by moment, hour by hour,
day by day. We need to learn to live in Christ and in Him alone. Our
desires need to be the ones that are focused on what Christ would have
in our lives. Our wants need to be brought completely in line with what
would be pleasing to Him. Our wishes need to express the substance of
Christ living His life out from us.
	    It is only as we ask God to search our hearts that He will be able
to highlight all that which is not Christ in us. Not Christ in us. It is
not, and never will be that we are to become like little christs that
inhabit and invade this earth. Heaven forbid that any one of us would be
so presumptuous. Rather, as we asked Christ to indwell us at our
conversion, and, as the Holy Spirit has come into our beings, so
everything	about us must be brought into line with the person of Christ
Who now resides in us and lives out from us.
      We must come to the point where we ask, even beseech God to do His
cleansing examination of our innermost beings. We need to know that it
is vital for our very existence that all that He desires is accomplished
in us. No matter what the cost, no matter what the means, no matter what
the avenue, just that He has His complete will in our lives. The heart,
used in the Greek, refers to the most interior part of us. It is the
deepest, most hidden, most protected aspect of our being that we are now
asking God to probe in order to bring to light that which is not
pleasing to Him in us.
	    This is an echo of the cry of King David in Psalms 26:2 Examine me,
0 Lord, and prove me; try my reins and my heart. We are presented with
the image of a bridled horse that is being tested as to the response to
the reins as the rider directs the way to be traveled. A loose rein
gives	the horse leeway to go this way and that way, swerving and veering
to and fro in a pointless path of indolence and stubborn recklessness.
As the Lord tries our reins, it is with the immediate purpose of
substantiating the beauty and the necessity of His Lordship in our
lives. He shows us how aimlessly we were wandering in the lost paths of
our selfbeing. We see the lack of bearing in our steps and in our
journeys. It is not that Christ is whipping us into submission, beating
us into the brokenness that must be our selfdirected heart before Him.
No, He is even more effective in His loving us into that
selfbrokenness. He brings us through the times of heartache and strife
by the very nature of His grace and His Being of Love. He shows us the
paths	of righteousness, and then leads us upon them with a desire to go
farther and farther in Him. He shows and proves Himself foremost in us,
and then applies His truth in the tests that are designed for His
uprightness to be evidenced. He brings those situations and
circumstances into our lives that show just how much we are inclined
unto Him. Each one, each of those glories that work out our salvation
from self and unto Him, reveal the character that is truly operating in
our depths. Jer. 17:10 1 the Lord search the heart, I try the reins,
even give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of
his doings. As we experience the evidence of the One Who now indwells
us, so too are we drawn with greater and greater intensity to know Him
more and more.
	   We often feel the fact that we are in the situation as described in
Prov. 17:3 The fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold: but
the Lord trieth the hearts. The Lord puts us into those fiery
situations, 10 times hotter than usual, in order to burn away anything
that is not of Him in our lives. His fining pot for our heart heats and
boils the very extent of our being, bringing to the surface all the
impurities and residue that are soon to be skimmed from the refined
essence of our very spiritual nature in Christ. There is no percentage
of error permissible in this heavenly kiln. The Lord is not satisfied
with alloys, mixtures of the old and the new. Neither will He accept
less than the perfection of the Beloved, not even at a tolerance of 99%
purity. The heavenly standard, by Whom we are measured, is not
negotiable, neither is He discountable. Our very essence is put under
the eyes of God to reveal anything that does not meet with His
inspection, with the desire in our beings that whatever is found needs
be removed, needs to be blasted from us in the intensity of the
working of the Holy Spirit. And, to be sure, it is a considerable
blasting that is used by God to root out and to incinerate exhaustively
every	shred of that old nature which held such sway in our beings.
Praise God that He doesn't choose to do it all at once. None of us could
bear it, nor survive it. It is seemingly with much devastation that even
the shards of self are removed from us, but God does what God deems
necessary to answer our prayers to go on in Christ. If that is truly our
desire, then He will accomplish all things necessary to satisfy that
craving after Christ. As Peter writes in I Pet. 1:7 That the trial of
your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though
it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory
at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
You know, there is much more to all of this than what we are seeing
taking place in our lives. It can become very easy for us to see how God
is dealing with us, individually, especially after the fact, when He has
finished taking us through a work in the trials of His Love and Grace.
That is still an aspect of our limited focus with us as the center
of attention. Yes, God is a personal God Who does delight in each one of
us, Onetoone. But there is more in the working of God than something
limited to just you and me. He is working to the full revelation of
Himself in His church, in the corporate body of believers who are the
Body of Christ. His efforts, His victories, His dealings are for the
eternal weight of glory that will be seen in the corporate us as the
bride	being prepared for Christ.
	   Everything that He is doing in you and in me is all for the same
purpose and plan, that we might be fully prepared for all that God has
determined in the ages of the ages, before the world was even created,
to manifest a pure and true relationship with God in Christ the Son. In
each of us, He may use different methods and different avenues, but the
results are that we all, together, desire more and more, with our hearts
being	vitally linked to each other, to know the fullest realities of
Jesus	Christ.
	   You see, this is one of the tremendous aspects of our Loving,
Heavenly Father. As He works perfectly in our Lives, scourging us, as
the Authorized version states, childtraining us, disciplining us, we
are always dealt with in the knowledge that what is being accomplished
is the best that God has to give us in Christ Jesus. We are never left
with a selfpitiful moaning about why me, God? That pity is one of the
self elements that needs to be removed. Rather, after the Lord has done
a work, we are filled with the immense love of God to so love us, that
He desires to bring only His very foremost truths into expression within
us. There is no doubt that we undergo immense dealings as He effectively
operates in our lives. There is terrific strain, and many tears, and
doubts even as to our very survival, as God manifests the putridness of
what was true of us in our hearts. We even become violently ill at
times, in the apprehension of just how defiled we were before God. And
it becomes apparent, just how much God still has to accomplish, and will
accomplish in order for our lives to become that which He longs for, and
will have. Thank God that He does not begin a work and expect us to
survive it on our own. Rather, it is in the process of His loving work
that we become acutely aware of the indwelling of His Holy Spirit
actively corroborating in our beings what we have heard so often in our
lessons and studies. Rom. 8:27 + 28 And he that searcheth the hearts
knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession
for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things
work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called
according to his purpose.
	   I can only praise God so very often for His faithfulness in just
this single portion of scripture. It is a bulwark against all those
times of doubt and worry about what is going on in our lives. It is the
answer to all of the accusations of the enemy that we are not worthy of
such an enormous undertaking by God. It is His work, not our own. And,
what He chooses to do, and how He chooses to do it is nothing over which
we have any control. What pleases Him to accomplish in our lives is what
is going to be done. And, in order to facilitate that effective ministry
of proving the victorious power of the risen Christ in us, God has made
manifest His very Holy Spirit to take us and keep us through every
dealing. Let us never forget that we do not go through ANYTHING alone.
We never have any dealings of God in our lives by ourselves! God loves
us so very much that He makes certain every provision to get us through
whatever is to be part of our day. The Holy Spirit guides us, and walks us
through each situation with an effective ministry of grace, and truth,
and comfort, and understanding, and prayer. He never forsakes us, no
matter how impossible the road may seem, for He is the One who created
that road upon which we are brought. He searches our hearts to see where
we are trying to hide away anything of self from God, and from
ourselves, and then leads us on paths that are sure to bring those
elements jostling to the forefront of our awareness. This is really what
needs	to happen. God already knows us. There is no hidden area of our
lives	from His penetrating searching. Rather, He needs to show us of
what our lives truly consist. He needs to make evident the lacking of us
in order to fill it with the allsufficiency of Himself. That is why He
does not start something without finishing it. He doesn't cause a boil
erupt	without healing it by His soothing touch of grace. He doesn't
stir up a fire without quenching it in the refreshment of Himself. He
doesn't guide us on a path of death without being there in the power of
His resurrection. Deut. 32:39 See now that I, even I, am he, and there
is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal:
neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.
Because He knows us, He makes every provision to cause us to know
Him. He stands on our behalf, by the Holy Spirit, in the intercession of
the Son and clothing us in the robe of His righteousness, taking away
all the garments of filth and scrubbing from us all the dung which so
grievously caked our old life.
	   Not only are we surrounded in all our dealings by God, but He makes
every	provision to surround us in His Love manifested in the words, the
actions, and the prayers, and the hugs of His Body of Believers.
Sometimes, it is this physical manifestation of His Love for us, that is
the most effective means for Him to show Himself pleased in the workings
of our lives. It is as His people respond to His guidance to pray for
one another, to stand with one another, to encourage one another in
Christ, that the pain and the suffering dissipate, because we know that
we are not alone by any measure. God makes every provision to meet the
needs	of His Beloved, of Whom we are all a part. We are not in this
alone. None of our little secrets are secrets before God, nor are their
effects secret before man. As we are being put through the death of
self,	so do the members of the Body gather together in unity that the
death	of self must take place in all of us, in order that the Life of
Christ may be even more evident in all of us. We are in it together,
because we are in Christ and vitally made part of each other.
	   Now please be clear on this point. I am not saying that all, if any
of the details need to be broadcast. That is not the issue before us,
and neither is it relevant to the effective working of God. Those are
things that are best left between God and the ones specifically
affected. Where forgiveness is needed and sought, the issue lies before
God and those in need. What is essential is that each of the members
take one another into our hearts and earnestly pray that what God is
accomplishing in one will be accomplished in the whole. To join
ourselves in that prayer and to encourage one another in that manner
will necessitate a complete cleansing in all of us. No finger pointing,
no thinking more or less of others, no "I told you sol's!" Only Christ,
and Him crucified! After all, He is our head, our source of life. John
10:14 I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.
	   As we seek after Him to search us, and to know us, and to try us,
so will we all come into a greater knowledge of Him and be known by
others as His own Beloved people.
    Search me, 0 God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way
everlasting.