‘The very hairs on your head are numbered.’ ‘We are safe as a sheep that follows a shepherd and we are under the care of this shepherd.’ These are all promises that we know very well. God provides us His care and safety every day. Each one of us is part of the body of Christ and we all have a part to do in this church. We need to find out what He wants us to do in our lives.
Psalms 23 is a very well-known chapter to all of us. In verse 1 we read, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” What a great comfort to have the Lord as our shepherd. He gives me the spiritual food and drink I need every day. If the Lord is our shepherd, we will have complete rest and it is God’s will for us not to be anxious. In verse 4-6 we read, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows. Surely goodness and loving kindness will follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” What assurance and comfort these verses give us. In the body of Christ we should have perfect peace. Many things may be going wrong, but we can have perfect peace and be in want of nothing; because the Lord is our shepherd.
In John 10:9 we read, “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.” Jesus is our shepherd and He calls us by name and we, the sheep, can identify His voice. If we follow this voice of Jesus, He will lead us to the green pastures. There may be sickness and problems in our lives, but we have Jesus as our shepherd to lead and comfort us. In Psalms 23:2,3 we read of all the things the shepherd does for us. In the church also, it is He (Jesus) who is leading us and doing everything for us. In verse 4 we read of the rod that corrects us and the staff that protects us. Together they comfort us. Similarly in the church, we do receive correction and protection from the Lord. In verse 5 we read that the shepherd prepares a table in the midst of the enemies and he anoints the head with oil. In the New Testament we can see this as victory over Satan and the filling of the Holy Spirit. If we allow Jesus to be our shepherd, we have the promises in verse 6 as ours. We all know the parable of the lost sheep. The shepherd goes to find that one sheep that has lost the way. The sheep that was lost didn’t get lost because it was rebellious but rather because it was straying away from the flock. We see the joy that the shepherd has when He finds the sheep.
In John 14:6 Jesus said, “I am the way”. In Ephesians 2:18 we read, “for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father” It is only through Jesus that we can reach the Father. If we allow Jesus to be our shepherd, He will lead us to a life where goodness and loving kindness shall follow us. Jesus gave His life for us. And this love that He has compels us to love Him. And in the church, we need to love our brothers in the same way. The way is narrow that leads to life. It is often difficult to go through this narrow way. We often have to say no to desires of our heart in order to love as Jesus loved. In order to have Jesus as our shepherd and to follow Him, we need to daily deny our self-will.
In Genesis we read of the life of Noah. Noah found favor in the eyes of God because of the life that Noah lived – without being part of the unrighteousness around him. Noah must have learnt about God from his great grandfather Enoch. Noah must have seen how Enoch walked with God. Noah was a righteous man and God saw that and chose Noah to build the ark. Noah preached the word of God and was ridiculed by all around him. God chose to establish His covenant through Noah. Noah became the care taker of all in the ark. After the rains everything was washed away but everyone in the ark was safe. The water outside helped the ark to float and the seal on the door helped keep the water out. The seal of the Holy Spirit helps us in our times of trouble. After the rains, Noah sent out a raven which never came back and a dove that came back. The raven was interested in what it found outside the ark, but the dove couldn’t find any stable ground outside the ark. We are part of the church, we are safe in the church. Are we attracted by things of this world or do we find no stable ground outside the church? It must have been very inconvenient for people in the ark with all the animals, but they were safe in the ark. Similarly we may have inconveniences and have to say no to our will when we are in the church, but the church provides a safe place in the evil world for us. Thank God for all the safety and protection we receive through the church. Jesus is the bread of life and unless we drink of the cup and eat from the bread we can’t be part of that life. In our daily life, we should have a broken life and in communion with the Lord, and then there is a divine protection in our lives.
In the presence of the Lord, we will have abundance of joy. This overflowing joy is what the Lord has promised as ours. David had an immense trust in the Lord and this Psalm 23 was written out of complete trust in the Lord. Let us always choose to have the Lord as our shepherd.
