"I Know Your Works"

Sin is strengthened by the illusion of secrecy. The wicked justifies his iniquity by saying “in his heart, ‘God has forgotten, he has hidden his face, he will never see it’” (Psalm 10:11).


Believing that his thoughts are known only to himself, he covets. Convinced that his fantasies are private affairs, he lusts. Persuaded that no one has access to his heart, he hates and blasphemes and revels in the passions of his flesh. Confident that God is either unable or unwilling to take note of his deeds, he steals, fornicates, and lies.

But Jesus shatters the fantasy, both for Christian and non-Christian, by declaring: “I know your works!” Indeed, this riveting claim appears at the beginning of each of the seven letters to the churches in the chapter two of the book of Revelation. In six of those instances the same refrain is found: “I know your works”. In the seventh (Rev. 2:9), he proclaims, “I know your tribulation and your poverty.”

How does your knowledge of God’s knowledge of you change your life? If it doesn’t, it should. Consider these affirmations of the knowledge that God has of your soul. It is both pervasive and perfect.

Let’s think for a moment about how God thinks! The first thing to remember is that whereas we learn by observation and reason (we employ induction and deduction), God simply knows! His knowledge is intuitive, innate, and immediate. He neither discovers nor forgets.

More than that, he knows everything at once! With God the act of knowing is complete and instantaneous. He thinks about all things at the same time, and is never not thinking about them (forgive the double negative!). As Wayne Grudem said, If God “should wish to tell us the number of grains of sand on the seashore or the number of stars in the sky, he would not have to count them all quickly like some kind of giant computer, nor would he have to call the number to mind because it was something he had not thought about for a time. Rather, he knows all things at once. All of these facts and all other things that he knows are always fully present in his consciousness".

God's knowledge of you and me is both exhaustive and infallible. He knows everything and he knows it perfectly. He holds no false beliefs about us and makes no errors of judgment. God knows exhaustively all his own deeds and plans (Acts 15:18) as well as ours. No secret of the human heart, no thought of the mind or feeling of the soul escapes his gaze.

This is explicitly affirmed in Psalm 139 – O LORD, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether” (vv. 1-4).

Every emotion, feeling, idea, thought, conception, resolve, aim, doubt, motive, perplexity, and anxious moment lies before God like an open book. And God knows all this "from afar"! The distance between heaven and earth by which men vainly imagine God's knowledge to be circumscribed (limited, bounded) offers no obstacle.

God knows "all my ways", which is to say that every step, every move, every journey, is under his gaze. What possible hope of concealment is there when God knows what we will say before we do?

So, if sin is strengthened by the illusion of secrecy, what better way to destroy its power than by meditating on the exhaustive and gloriously infallible knowledge that God has of us! Here again is the declaration of Jesus: “I know your works!”
Artcle Excerpt by Sam Storms

Scripture references for those who wish to go directly to God's Word and study these passages in context:

“And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought” (1 Chronicles 28:9a).

“O God, you know my folly; the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you” (Psalm 29:5). "The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good" (Proverbs 15:3).

“Sheol and Abaddon lie open before the Lord, how much more the hearts of the children of man!” (Proverbs 15:11).

“Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, ‘My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God’? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable” (Isaiah 40:27-28).

“O Lord of hosts, who tests the righteous, who sees the heart and the mind, . . .” (Jeremiah 20:12).

"The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick; who can understand it? 'I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds’” (Jeremiah 17:9-10; cf. also Jer. 16:17; 18:23; 1 Kings 8:39).

“And the Spirit of the Lord fell upon me, and he said to me, ‘Say, Thus says the Lord: So you think, O house of Israel. For I know the things that come into your mind’” (Ezekiel 11:5).

"For your Father knows what you need before you ask him" (Matthew 6:8).

“And they prayed and said, ‘You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen’” (Acts 1:24).

“And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13).

“God is greater than our heart, and knows everything” (1 John 3:20).

God's knowledge of the inner man is also affirmed in Deuteronomy 31:21; 1 Samuel 16:7; Psalm 94:9-11; Isaiah 66:18; Jeremiah 11:20; 32:19; Luke 16:15 (“God knows your hearts”)

Acts 15:8; Rom. 8:27 (“he who searches hearts”);

1 Corinthians 3:20; 1 Thessalonians 2:4; and Revelation 2:23;. For his awareness of all our activities and ways, see also 1 Samuel 2:3; Job 23:10; 24:23; 31:4; Psalms 1:6; 33:13-15; 37:18; 119:168; Isaiah 29:15; Matthew 10:30.