God’s Knowledge

“God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things” (1 John 3:20).

All of us have moments when our hearts condemn us, but God knows that we belong to Him even when we are having doubts. He knows it, John assures us, because He knows everything. That is the doctrine of omniscience, which simply means “all knowing” (omni = all; science = knowledge). God has perfect knowledge of everything—past, present, and future.

The Bible is filled with details of God’s knowledge. For example, He knows the number and names of all the stars (Psalm 147:4). He knows every sparrow (Matthew 10:29). He knows every bird of the mountains and every wild beast in the fields (Psalm 50:11). But most important of all, He knows us and everything about us (Matthew 10:30). In Psalm 139, David assured us that God knows when we sit down and when we stand up. He knows our thoughts before we think them, while they are far away from us. He knows everything that we do. He knows every word we speak before it ever comes out of our mouths.

There is no way that we can possibly keep any secrets from Him (Psalm 44:21). He gave us a demonstration of His mind-reading, heart-searching techniques one day in Bethlehem. The prophet Samuel had arrived in town to choose Israel’s future king. One by one Jesse paraded seven of his sons before Samuel, but God rejected them all. He explained to Samuel, “The Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). But when the youngest was brought in from keeping his father’s sheep, God’s spiritual X-ray vision perceived a heart that dearly loved Him and longed to please Him. “Arise, anoint him: for this is he” (1 Samuel 16:12). David had his moments of spiritual failure, as we all do, but few people in Scripture could rival his wholehearted devotion to God. God saw that devotion while David was still a youth.

One of the last things David did before he died was to give this charge to his son Solomon: “Know thou the God of thy father, and serve Him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts” (1 Chronicles 28:9). He knows all of our faults and failures. Not one shortcoming will ever surface unexpectedly to disillusion Him. He sees the whole of our lives, including the temptations we shall face and the sins we shall commit, yet He never stops loving us (Jeremiah 31:3) and He never stops interceding for us (Hebrews 7:25). 

There is only one thing that God blots out of His knowledge, and that is our sins. He said, “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:34). That is a blessed promise for every true child of God. God knows whether or not we are truly His children. On several occasions the Lord Jesus demonstrated His penetrating knowledge of people who had professed to believe on Him but whose commitment was not sincere (John 2:23-25; 6:64). He knows the same thing about us. If you have never genuinely acknowledged your sin and trusted Him for forgiveness, do it now. He will blot every sin you ever committed forever from His memory.

—Condensed from The Joy of Knowing God by Richard L. Strauss.