Verse of the Day: Psalm
23:1 The Lord is
my shepherd; I shall not want.
Psalm 23 is one of the
most well known Psalms in Scripture. I have most often heard it read during
funerals, but this truly is a Psalm for those of us that are alive and well. It
is not really known exactly when King David wrote it, but it most definitely
was written from his own experiences as a shepherd. This Psalm is a great
reminder that God is a personal God. King David wrote, “The Lord is my Shepherd”.
How beautiful and comforting it is to know that God is our personal God. Like
the shepherd knows each individual sheep, so God knows each of us, and deals
with us individually and personally. He knows what is happening in each of our
lives, and takes a personal interest, regardless of how great or small we may
think the situation to be. In John 10, the Word of God tells us that Jesus is
our Good Shepherd. He tells us that not only is He our Shepherd (and knows each
of us), but we too know His voice and follow Him. However, in order for us to
truly recognize His voice, we must know His Word (2 Tim 2:15). We must not
forget that our enemy, the devil, tries to mimic God and wants to deceive us by
twisting God’s truth and taking us down a path that leads us away from God. Every
day in life we will make decisions; and each decision, regardless of how great
or small, needs to be filtered through what we know of God’s truth because each
decision can potentially have great consequences. The Psalm goes on to tell us
that our Shepherd sees to it that we have everything we need. As a matter of
fact, He knows even before we ask (Matt 6:8). However, we must not mistake our
wants for our needs. This is not to say that God will not also give us the
things we desire; however, when God is our priority in life, our desires will
line up with His (Ps 37:3-5) making more likely that the wants we ask for will
be in accordance to God’s will and plan for our lives. In Matthew 6:25-34, our
Good Shepherd reminds us that we should not worry about what we need. He takes
care of the birds of the air, and we are more valuable to God than they are. Why then would He not see to it that we have
all that we need on a daily basis? All too often we spend way too much time
worrying about how we are going to meet our weekly or monthly bills or
responsibilities, forgetting that we are not guaranteed tomorrow, and that God
will take care of next week’s and next month’s needs when next week and next
month has come. I am afraid that if we are to take an honest look back at all
the times we worried, we would have to admit that we wasted a lot of time
worrying and making ourselves sick over things that God ultimately took care
of. Let us live today trusting God, and letting Him take care of tomorrow’s
needs, as today will have its own set of challenges without us trying to
anticipate what they will be (which are already in God’s hands and under His
control); Matt 6:34.
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