This article is a summary of a sermon given to The Temple Baptist Church in Powell, TN. We hope it will encourage you in your own private pursuit of our Lord and Saviour.

Every one of us has a secret life known only to God. What we really are is what we are in our secret life. All of our existence is connected to our secret life.

Our Lord Jesus Christ spoke to His disciples specifically about this secret life in Matthew 6:1-18. Five times in this passage, our Lord repeats the words “in secret.” Alone with God, any one of us may pull down the aid of heaven for anything we are seeking to do in the will of God. The victorious life must be lived before God, not men.

OUR SECRET LIFE IS SEEN BY GOD.

The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 139:7-11,

Whither shall I go from thy spirit?
or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there:
if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
If I take the wings of the morning,
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
Even there shall thy hand lead me,
and thy right hand shall hold me.
If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me;
even the night shall be light about me.

We cannot hide from God. Proverbs 15:3 says, “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.” Once we stop ignoring the presence of God in our lives, we can truly enjoy living in it. The Scripture says in Psalm 91:1, “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” What a precious promise! There is a secret life in God’s secret place.

OUR SECRET LIFE IS SEARCHED BY THE LORD.

God requires a clean vessel. In Matthew 6, our Lord addresses hypocrisy expressed in three religious acts: the giving of alms, prayer, and fasting. We must search out our motives. Everything we do should come out of our worship of Christ.

In Jeremiah 17:7, God gives the picture of a tree decaying on the outside. He reminds us that when we see this decay, we know it is caused by some problem on the inside of the tree. Then we find these words in verses nine and ten of the same chapter, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.”

God is on the hunt. He is interested. He is our loving heavenly Father. The moment we trusted Christ as our Saviour, we will never be alone again. Every thought is dealt with by the work of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.

I do not live my life constantly thinking that God is out to get me. He intends for us to live a joyful life. It will not be without trials and difficulties. Job 14:1 says, “Man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble.”

On the other side of that, we must recognize that God is not simply tagging along with whatever we do in our life. The Lord God Almighty is the only true and living God. He is all-knowing, always present, all-powerful, and the Bible says He searches our secret life. We cannot hide anything from God.

Each one of us knows what we need God’s help to overcome in our secret life. I thank God that He has made a way for cleansing. But He has also made a way to resist temptation so the cleansing is not needed.

GOD SENDS REWARDS TO OUR SECRET LIFE.

God wants to bless us not catch us. The Lord does not only say that our Father sees in secret, in Matthew 6:4, 6, and 1, He repeats, “thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” Heaven’s bank is full of blessings. Think of everything God has given you. Then think of this: all of that is only the beginning of what He wants to do in your life if you will only seek Him first.

If we take care of our secret life, God will take care of our public life. But if we take care of our public life, and neglect our secret life we better not expect God to bless because what we really are is what we are in our secret life.

Charles Spurgeon said, “If any man pleases God, he does that which conduces most to his own temporal and eternal welfare.” We want to do things in our own strength, but our Lord so desires that we look to Him in every part of our lives. As we do that, He will bless and use us “exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20).

If you would like to watch a full message on this subject by Pastor Clarence Sexton, please go to
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOFsC3BLr14.