The Shepherd’s Promise
Psalm 23 is a poem about God as our Shepherd. It’s all about how God knows what is best for us. He knows who we are and the paths we should walk in life. Because He is our Shepherd, He also is our Protector, guarding us from evil.
At the end of Psalm 23, there is a promise for us. For those who follow God and listen to His guidance, the writer says that goodness and mercy will follow us.
What does it mean that God’s goodness and mercy will follow us?
It doesn’t mean that life will go according to our plans. It also doesn’t mean life will be free of pain and problems. Psalm 23:4 tells us that we will still have to walk through dark valleys in life.
Here’s what it does mean: God will always be with us. God will always be good to us. Life may not always be easy, but God promises to always be good.
Because of these truths, the writer of this Psalm says that his desire is to be with God in God’s house forever. We ought to desire the same thing as well. It’s because of God’s goodness and mercy that we will one day join Him in heaven to be with Him forever.
Take some time today to consider God as your Shepherd, who cares for you and protects you. Thank Him that His goodness and mercy will never end but will follow you every day of your life.
Power, Love, and Discipline
One of the miracles of salvation is that when we have faith in Christ, God not only saves us—He also gives us the power to live according to His will. Your life in Christ is one that is empowered by the Holy Spirit living within you.
This is a great gift, but a big shift. It often takes time to change how we think and act. We may have bad habits that take hard work to correct, or patterns of thought that are challenging to break.
Thankfully, God promises to be with us and to empower us to make these changes in our life. When Paul is writing to his mentee Timothy, he encourages him to continue to develop the gift that God has given to him. While we are saved in an instant, it takes a lifetime to develop and work out what God is doing inside of us.
Paul reminds Timothy that God’s Spirit does not give us fear or cowardice. Those things are tools of the devil who is trying to keep us from God. But the Spirit of God empowers us with confidence in Him. He gives us the ...