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We are going to spend another day meditating on the phrase, ‘The LORD is my Shepherd’. Over the past few weeks we have seen the importance of gaining a clear concept of who God is, for, as someone once said, ‘the clearer your concept of God, the more vital will be your relationship with Him God’. How clear is your concept of God? Can you say as did David, ‘the LORD is my Shepherd’? Psalm 23 has been described by someone as ‘David’s hymn of praise to divine diligence’. The entire passage recounts the way in which the divine Shepherd spares no pains for the welfare of His Sheep. No wonder David, previously a shepherd himself, took pride in being a member of God’s flock. How about you, are you really a member of God’s flock? I have always warned people of their hypocritical claims of life because that is the reason we don’t receive answers to our prayers since most of our claims of God are hypocritical, they are not real! The Christian writer, Philip Keller, tells how he spent some years working as a shepherd in East Africa, and makes reference to a shepherd he knew who was completely indifferent to the needs of the sheep. ‘The man’, he says, gave little or no time to his flock, letting them pretty well forage for themselves as best they could, both in summer and winter. They fell prey to dogs, cougars and rustlers. They had only polluted, muddy water to drink. In my mind’s eye I can still see them standing at the fence, huddled sadly in little knots, staring wistfully through the wires at the rich pastures on the other side. That shepherd ignored the needs of his sheep –he just didn’t care. How different is the divine Shepherd. For Him there is no greater joy, no richer reward, no deeper satisfaction than that of seeing His sheep safe, contented and flourishing under His care.

We will spend another day meditating on this tremendously important thought –that the primary image of God which we carry in our hearts is the one we often first relate to in crisis. This is why because we do not carry the true image of God in our heart is why we fear and are not even sure that God will do for us what He promised He will do; we are so afraid of our sin that we feel God will forsake us and as such we do not really trust and rely on Him. If we can really restructure our minds with the true Word of God and know that no matter what, our God still relates to us in a Father child relationship and He will surely long to save us in any challenging situation or circumstance if only we will faithfully call upon Him for help and assistance in the time of trouble. David, in the midst of his trials, consoled himself with the thought that God was not his Judge, but his Shepherd. So it is very important for you to know what God is to you because it is only then can you be bold to trust and rely on Him. This was David’s primary view of God, and so the image of the divine Shepherd’s tender love and care filled his heart as he meditated upon Him mostly with regard to all the things God has done for him, what about you, are there not numerous things you can call to mind in your meditation which God has done for you for which you can trust and rely on Him? Surely there are! Someone once said: ‘You will never rise higher in your Christian life and experience than your image and concept of God.’ How true. You see you can recite the Words of Psalm 23 all day, but it will not have much effect if the picture of God you carry deep in your heart is that of a tyrant or a dictator or a judge or a punisher. Yes it is true that our God will chastise you when you go wrong or contrary to His divine words but that chastisement is to put you in the right and thus to correct you as a loving Father who longs for the good of His child. Your wrong image of God in your mind or heart will negate the impact of His Words in your life. Archbishop William Temple put it like this: ‘It is not so much the words we say with our lips that produce inner peace, but the thoughts that we carry deep within our heart. It is down there –in the heart –that the real changes take place. If the thoughts in our hearts do not really correspond with the words on our lips, then we are just whistling in the dark’. So before we go any further into this beautiful Psalm, pause and consider how true to Scripture your picture of God is. Tender–or tyrannical? Caring –or condemning? A negative view of God is rarely changed overnight, but I am confident that as we meditate day by day upon this transforming Psalm, we shall finally come to the same conclusion as David –that everything that a good shepherd is to the sheep, God is to His people. And once you are able to make this thought sink down in your heart and begin to rule and moderate what you do and say in life then you will have such confidence in our God that nothing shakes you any more!

‘’Putting in context’’ means making a topic easier to understand by giving extra information about the time, place, situation, history, and so on. If something is seen in context or if it is put into context, it is considered together with all the factors that relate to it. As nouns the difference between perspective and context is that perspective is a view, vista or outlook while context is the surroundings, circumstances, environment, background or settings that determine, specify, or clarify the meaning of an event or other occurrence; e.g. in what context did your attack on him happen? We had a pretty tense relationship at the time, and when he insulted me I snapped. As we journey through Psalm 23, we should keep in mind that it is an expression of confidence in the protective care of God –despite the difficulties and struggles that we face in life. This is where many of us get it all wrong, because once we encounter difficulties in life we just feel our God is not doing something to help us and as such we begin to think of alternatives and we wavier. We do not want to remain focused on God no matter what! David begins by putting his problems in their proper context –he focuses his gaze directly upon God: ‘the Lord is my shepherd’. This is a good advice for life generally –to bring God into the situation, for then you will have a proper frame of reference in which to deal with your difficulties. Someone has said, ‘If we haven’t really gotten ourselves focused on that within us which is above us, we will soon yield to that which is around us.’ Often we talk about looking up to heaven and at the same time getting engrossed in things of the world; it does not just happen or work out that way! Also I have talked about opening up your mind to God just as you would not do to people but in reality we hide so many things from our God just as we do to people and it is very wrong even though our God knows it all but sometimes He will just keep you quiet because He knows you are yet fooling yourself, until you tell yourself the truth. Also someone has said, it must be hard for those who do not know God and have to face their troubles alone. An agnostic professor (who does not know or believe in God) spoke for all who share his agnosticism when he wrote: ‘I am not sure whether my doings have anything cosmic at the back of them, whether I am working with anything significant, or just working meaninglessly alone, with no one to back my work or care.’ And so it is with many people, they are not sure God is really there to do something as He promised which is why for you to really deal with our God, He wants you to believe Him, to be sure He is Who He said He is! No wonder someone described both agnostics and atheists as ‘people who have no invisible means of support’; they do not believe any one is behind whatever they do, they feel everything they do is by their own strength. Whatever you do just know that our God is ahead working with you! How different situations are –even desperate ones –when God is brought into picture. Instead of being tossed about on wave after wave of inane existence we have a star by which we can steer our boat –and a safe and certain harbor to anchor. David puts his problems in the right context by saying, ‘Look at who my Shepherd is –the Lord of Glory!’ are you proud to point people to Who your God is? When we pause in the midst of our problems to reflect on who is with us we will say, like David: ‘The Lord! He is my Shepherd.’ So from all of this we see and know that one of our problem is not being in context, we wavier in the midst of our problem, we run here and there because of our problem instead of facing reality and get focused in our Lord Jesus Christ who heals, who saves and who protects, and guide and fight for us! Let us always act like King David who takes his problem and spread it before our God knowing that with Him all things are possible!

We begin today a phrase -by –phrase exposition of one of the most beautiful and best-loved passages in the whole of God’s Word –The Twenty-Third Psalm. This serene and sacred Psalm towers over the others as does Mount Everest over the Himalayas. The great preacher C.H. Spurgeon said of it: ‘What the nightingale is among birds, this Psalm is among others: it has sung sweetly in the ear of many a dejected soul, and in the night of his weeping has given him hope for a morning of joy.’ Many may have memorized this poignant Psalm, but never really studied it in detail. Commentators believe that it was written during the time when David’s son Absalom rebelled against him, causing him David to flee into the Wilderness of Judea. Can you imagine the pain, the desolation and the down cast that the King David may have felt running away from his own son for fear of being killed into the bush away from his palace? The rich also cry! Outlawed and hunted by his own son, David comforted himself with images drawn from his more peaceful days as a shepherd. This is the aspect of life issues that many people do not get, the fact that when things go bad and hard, do not look for who or what to blame rather begin to reflect on your life trends both good and bad and in the process of doing so our Lord God has a way of bringing reality and truth back to you and in it you may be able to find one area or two where you faltered that needs to be amended for things to move on again! But more often people like to waste the time looking for blames which does not lead anywhere. Psalm 23 is a passage that particularly speaks to people who, like David, are experiencing a major upheaval in life. This is, according to Walter Bruggemann, ‘a Psalm of confidence. It recounts in detail, by means of rich metaphors, a life lived in trustful receptivity of God’s gifts’. Why not begin memorizing it and repeating it out loud to yourself? Each day roll every word around on the tip of your spiritual tongue and suck every precious drop of refreshment from it. Let it lie upon your mind until you feel its peace and serenity invading and penetrating every cell of your being. I promise you that if, day by day, you will make the effort to absorb the truths in this matchless Psalm, you need never again feel overwhelmed by life’s difficulties and problems. Because in the first place, you have realized that there is someone Who own you, Who created you for His good pleasure and purpose and if the way you are is what He wants then good but if not, He will surely change things for the better and best only be sure that you are not the cause of why things are the way they are by your errors of life! Many of us do not want to admit the simple truth and fact that in many times, things go wrong because of our own error of life and God has no hands in it because He created us free will beings who are capable of making choices with His leading but we like to make choices with our own leading and God said when you question My Order and Rule and make choice by yourself without My Leading, you are likely to err, falter and end up in chaos and get ruined and have crisis!

Let’s continue considering the various stages through which the Kingdom of God has to pass, starting with the sin entering the world and culminating with the day when God’s rule will once again be universally re-established. In the beginning God’s order was called into question by man’s sin, and the result was chaos, God, however, instead of crushing this revolt by force, allowed it to pursue its course and consequences, but also put into operation a plan which would one day bring the universe back into harmony with Himself and, at the same time, demonstrate His own eternal love and true character. All of these processes are what is symbolized in the sequences of planting, growth and maturity or fruitfulness. It is this processes that is ongoing that makes it seem as if the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is being elongated! In all these man is involved and at certain point in time man’s sin or weaknesses will be reflected and must be surely taken care of for things to remain true and perfect reflecting only our Lord God Almighty’s eternal love and true character that is to be imbibed by man. In the Old Testament we find a pattern for kingship, giving us an idea of what life can be like when a king and his subjects live together in harmony; recall our king Servant sermon where our Lord Jesus condescends to teach us true service to man. Sadly, however, many of the kings of Israel and Judah were unrighteous and fell far short of God’s ideal. So, through the prophets, God announced that one day the King of the Universe Himself would come into the world to re-establish His kingdom in the hearts of His subjects. Today there is no ‘kingdomness’ in the hearts of our leaders, all they know is themselves with little or no care for the well being of their subjects at heart, a trend that vex the love heart of our Lord God Almighty! All confusion about the kingdom disappears when we consider the orderly progression of teaching in the Old Testament which leads to the fact that the kingdoms of earth, though faint portrayals of heavenly things, were totally inadequate to produce universal peace and happiness. In other words, the way things are currently in the universe cannot produce true universal peace and happiness which is why all the bodies like EU, UN formed by man to uphold universal peace and happiness seem to have failed! At each stage of history in the Old Testament we see events pointing like a signpost to the future telling in types, pictures and illustrations that one day the King of heaven would appear and establish His rule in the hearts and minds of men which will enable them to have the mind, love and character of God in their hearts and thus reflect the ideals of God Almighty in everything that they do on earth hence the kingdoms of the world have become the kingdom of our God Lord Jesus Christ. Now that day has come and the promised kingdom is ours. How wonderful! How truly wonderful!