October 25

For His eyes are on the ways of a man, and He sees his every step. — Job 34:21 BSB

The Christian must come to know that nothing escapes the eye of a just and holy God. He lays bare every secret thought, searches every hidden purpose, and examines every desire and movement of the mind. In doing so, He exposes and brings to light all the secret sins of the heart. Most people take no notice of the sins within their hearts; if they can avoid outward acts of immorality, they are satisfied. What happens in the hidden chambers of their thoughts they neither see nor care about. But this is not the case with the child of grace. The experience described in Psalm 139 is his reality. He carries with him a constant conviction that God’s eye reads every thought. Every inward movement of pride, self-righteousness, rebellion, discontent, irritability, lust, and excess is read by God, who sees all, marks all, and condemns all by His righteous law. And because He is perfectly pure, He hates and abhors all of it.

Thus, the Christian proves, among “all things” weighed and measured in the inward court of conscience, that he is a sinner before God—a sinner of a deeper, more crimson stain than any other, because he knows the secrets of his own heart, which no one else can see or know. He recognizes that others may have sinned more outwardly and grossly, but he feels that no one has sinned inwardly as continuously and foully as he has. This is what makes him echo Job’s words: “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You; therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5, 6).