{"id":448,"date":"2015-03-02T16:22:37","date_gmt":"2015-03-02T16:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/?p=448"},"modified":"2015-03-03T18:40:42","modified_gmt":"2015-03-03T18:40:42","slug":"the-lord-is-my-shepherd-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/the-lord-is-my-shepherd-11\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lord is my Shepherd (11)"},"content":{"rendered":"

“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside the quiet waters, He restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The first few phrases of this Psalm have reminded us that the Lord is our Good Shepherd. \u00a0We can trust Him to meet our needs and to give us security and rest. \u00a0He knows us and He knows what we need…He restores our soul. \u00a0He has proven this great love for us on the cross. \u00a0Walking further into these verses,\u00a0David tells us that the Good Shepherd also guides us. \u00a0He knows where you have been.\u00a0 He knows where you are and where you need to go and can give you the direction that you need to get there.\u00a0\u00a0We are on a journey\u00a0that God has designed us to travel.\u00a0 Another Psalm of David says, “all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be”<\/em> (Psalm 139:16).\u00a0 Paul said, “we are God’s\u00a0handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared for us in advance to do”<\/em> (Eph. 2:10).<\/p>\n

This is exciting but, in order to experience the things that God has planned for us, we need a good guide.\u00a0 Sometimes we can get distracted.\u00a0 Sometimes we think that we know the best way because we know the situation better than Him.\u00a0 The writer of Hebrews says,<\/p>\n

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, as we are – yet without sin”<\/em> (Heb. 4:15)<\/p>\n

Jesus is the Author and Perfecter of our faith.\u00a0 He knows the way.\u00a0 The Good Shepherd is our guide through the complexities of this life.\u00a0 He can help us maneuver through difficult circumstances and avoid things that will distract us from our purpose.\u00a0\u00a0Our Guide, Jesus, \u00a0knows where the good paths are. \u00a0He also knows which paths are dangerous.<\/p>\n

Today, in your meditation on this Psalm, ask God to give you guidance in the paths of righteousness that He has for you.\u00a0 He will give you the directions and walk with you.\u00a0 In fact, that’s another characteristic about a great guide…He goes with you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside the quiet waters, He restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for His name’s … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lenten_blog_2015","category-all_posts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":454,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448\/revisions\/454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}