23 1The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside
the still waters.
3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.
4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I
will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
God bless you and good morning. God is good all the time…Each
Tuesday morning at 5:30am we have prayer. This past Tuesday I was woke and
pre-praying when a good friend from overseas sent me such an encouraging word
that I couldn’t even go back to sleep. In this venue it would be impossible to summarize
but in general it had to do with adhering to the plan of God for Christians. As
a Christian there will be times of uncertainty, whereas everything that you
want to do or even need to do works to not be done.
Today I want to look at verse 2 of the 23rd
Psalms. He maketh me lie down in green pastures. A sheep favorite past time is
grazing. When a sheep graze they have a habit which makes cattle ranchers
bristle. A sheep does not dally around with just the shoots of grass, in particular
they like the roots. And when they eat down to the root, the grass has nothing
to grow back on…I thank God that we can never eat the root of His pasture and
make it bare. In verse 2 when we are at a place of comfort we can lie down. I
have been in my lifetime in places where I slept but I was not comfortable. Though
my body got some semblance of rest, my mind never did. So the peace of mind God
promised was not there. But green pastures are so important in the life of
sheep considering that their eating method causes field to not be green for
long, but the Psalmist David recognized that the pasture of God was always
green. But take note how David said lie down, and not chow down…There comes a
time when even the sheep has had its fill and after he has had his fill in God’s
pasture he can take comfort that there is still grass in the pasture.
The next stanza says “He leadeth me beside the still
waters.” Sheep are notoriously skittish. A slight unfamiliar sound will cause
the heard to scamper away. SO a sheep would never feel comfortable walking past
rapidly moving water, let alone drink from it. A sheep needs their places of
nourishment to be peaceful. David wrote these particular psalms while sitting
on a hillside looking into Jerusalem at his rebellious son Absalom humiliate
him. How hard is it to be humiliated by your child especially one whom David
favored and even more so this son wanted to kill him.
But David encouraged himself by writing this beloved set
of scriptures. How awesome is it that the trouble David had gotten himself into
that God still comforted him by allowing him to write the words of his comfort
and the comfort of many ages after him.
God Bless You and Command Your Day
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