[Darris McNeely] Who's watching you? That's the question that is the rage in the United States right now because revelations that the National Security Agency, also known as the NSA, has been tapping into the telephone calls, the emails, of all the United States Citizens - cell phone calls, cyber traffic that's taking place to the tune of billions every single day. This knowledge has come forth and the details and actual facts will sort themselves out over a period of time, but already there have been cries that the Constitution has been subverted, that we are heading towards a police state that even the dreaded numbers "1984" after the George Orwell novel is now upon us as Big Brother is spying upon United States citizens. Of course the government is saying that they are not.

But what has happened especially since 9/11? In all western nations is the increased emphasis upon ferreting out terrorist activity before it happens. And as a result of that, incidents of looking into phone calls, emails, and the actions of citizens has grown exponentially and quite frankly it will continue to do so. Now where this will go, how it will wind up is a good question. Everyone in the United States values their privacy, and no one wants to give up all of these basic freedoms. And we hope that is not the case because that gives us all a great deal of freedom and peace in our society. But the cost of that peace sometimes gets quite high especially when our enemies are able to use all of these other means themselves to circumvent laws and attack targets and citizens in America and other Western nations.

And so that question is going to have to be settled, and it may be settled at quite a price. Let's be blunt. Whenever you and I start using a credit card, when we open up a cell phone, when we go online and the internet, we go on the grid. And what we do, everything we accomplish is tracked and it's stored and it can be used in many different ways, sliced and diced. And this is part of the parcel of the world we're in today, and we're going to have to learn to live with it, and let's hope that we don't certainly revert to a police state.

That raises another questions: Who's watching you? From our point of view here on Beyond Today, we look at the Bible and the Bible has a lot to say about exactly who is watching us. As I was looking at some of the scriptures and I was amazed at how discerning Jesus Christ was when He was engaging with people as the gospel accounts bring out. He could discern their thoughts, their hearts as they were reasoning among themselves. He could cut right to it, which is a very interesting matter.

Who's watching us? God is.

In 1 Corinthians 4:5 the Apostle Paul writes, "Judge nothing before the time until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the councils of the heart. Then each one's praise will come from God." live our life on the grid. And yes, we can be monitored and every action that we engage in can be recorded and taken care of. But understand we'll make our way through that, but understand as well that in reality our thoughts have always been monitored by our God. And our thoughts and our life is on God's grid. That's what's most important, and we will be judged accordingly. Think that one through.

That's BT Daily. Join us next time.