Tuesday, November 23, 2010

“God is All-Knowing” Adult Sunday School Lesson

International Sunday School Lesson
For Week Ending November 28, 2010

Purpose: To celebrate the wonder that God knows us better than we know ourselves yet loves us without limit

Scripture Text: Psalm 139:1-6, 13-16, 23-24 (NRSV)

Psalm 139:1-6
(1)O LORD, you have searched me and known me.
(2)You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.
(3)You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.
(4)Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely.
(5)You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
(6)Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.
Psalm 139: 13-16
(13)For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
(14)I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.
(15)My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
(16)Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.
Psalm 139 23-24
(23)Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts.
(24)See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.


My Thoughts by Burgess Walter


I can recall at a very early age I learned these three important sounding words that sort of defined God for me, they were “Omniscient,” “Omnipotent,” and Omnipresent.” One reason I learned them was because they were in one of the hymns we used to sing, but for the life of me I cannot remember the name of the hymn. Concerning how we define God, one of my favorite authors said this “What comes into our minds when we think about God, is the most important thing about us.” —A.W. Tozer

In our lesson text, the Psalmist uses different thoughts to define his conception of God. This Psalm is used by many to explain the” “all-knowing” and “all-powerful” “ever-present,” attribute we assign to God.

In a world that goes to great lengths to keep their privacy, it is sometimes uncomfortable for us believe that God is aware of our every word, thought or deed. However that is exactly the picture that the Psalmist paints.

God’s power, knowledge and presence with each of us as individuals and as a whole is unfathomable for most of us. We need to understand as threatening or restrictive that might seem, His grace for us is even greater. Knowing our faults, and mistakes or indifference is not the same as judgment. “All we, like sheep, have gone astray.” That is not a secret, we know it and God knows it. Our problems come when we ignore the remedy for sin. The Psalmist recognizes his need to seek a new path, “lead me in the way everlasting.”

The Psalmist appears to comprehend the complexity of human life, and knows that all that has been revealed to him pales, when compared to the knowledge God possess. As I see it the challenge is for us to align God's plan for our life, with our own plan, then we are assured of achieving what God has planned for us.

What is it that keeps you from not trusting God completely?

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