God Knows Our Thoughts (1-30-12)

Isaiah 66:18 - "For I know their works and their thoughts; the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues. And they shall come and see My glory."

In the life of Moses we learned that God knows our futures. In 2 Kings 19 we saw that God knows our deeds and that nothing we do is hidden from His sight. In the verse above, from Isaiah, we learn that not only does God know our deeds but He also knows our thoughts. Do you realize that nothing that comes into your mind is hidden from God? He knows it all. Ezekiel 11:5 says - "Then the Spirit of the LORD fell upon me, and He said to me, “Say, ‘Thus says the LORD, “So you think, house of Israel, for I know your thoughts."
In the thirty first chapter of Deuteronomy God is speaking to Moses shortly before his death and He is telling him that after his death when the children of Israel enter into the promised land to possess it they will turn away from Him and play the harlot with the gods of all the nations. In verse 21 the Lord says this - "for I know their intent which they are developing today, before I have brought them into the land which I swore.” Even before God brought them into the land of Canaan, the people were already developing evil intentions in their hearts and minds and God knew it. In the New Testament, in Hebrews 4:12 the Bible says this - "For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart." Gods word judges, not only our thoughts, but also the intentions of our hearts, our motives. 
Our minds are difficult to control and there is a battle raging for your mind, a battle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. That's why Paul exhorts us in Ephesians 6 to "take up the helmet of salvation." To protect our minds. It's so easy to indulge in the sins of our minds, whether it be an evil or judgmental thought toward someone, or thoughts of lust or greed. None of these things are outward (yet), but they're very wrong. We may think we're doing alright because no one else knows what's going on in our minds, but God does. God sees every thought that enters into your mind, and the thought is just as much a sin against Him as is the action. So what do we do? God wants us to kill these evil thoughts as soon as they begin. In 2 Corinthians chapter 10 the apostle Paul is dealing once again with spiritual warfare and the battle for our minds, and this is what he says in verses 3-5 - "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ." This is a great verse to memorize. God knows our thoughts and we should desire to glorify Him even in our thought life. We need to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Every time an evil thought begins to enter into our minds we need to take it captive with thoughts of our Lord.

Psalm 139:2 - "O LORD, Thou hast searched me and known me. Thou dost know when I sit down and when I rise up; Thou dost understand my thought from afar."