{"id":451,"date":"2015-03-03T15:56:58","date_gmt":"2015-03-03T15:56:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/?p=451"},"modified":"2015-03-03T18:40:41","modified_gmt":"2015-03-03T18:40:41","slug":"the-lord-is-my-shepherd-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/the-lord-is-my-shepherd-12\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lord is my Shepherd (12)"},"content":{"rendered":"

“He guides me in paths of righteousness…”<\/em><\/p>\n

Read through Psalm 23 today slowly.\u00a0 Allow it to refresh you with the assurance of the Lord’s presence.\u00a0 He is your Shepherd.<\/p>\n

The Good Shepherd guides us.\u00a0 But let me remind you that we can choose whether to follow that guidance or not.\u00a0 In fact, the root of our sinful nature comes from the refusal to follow God’s guidance.\u00a0 Remember our heritage from the garden of Eden?\u00a0 God had given specific guidance but it was rejected and we have continued in that rebellion since.\u00a0 Our sin is that we believe that we know a better path.\u00a0 I sometimes do that with my GPS.\u00a0 It will be directing on a certain route and I will disagree, “I know a better way” or “Yes, you can go that way but I know a quicker route”.\u00a0 We, as humans, have a harder time than we will admit when it comes to following directions.<\/p>\n

So, how can we do this?\u00a0 How can we keep from straying from the directions God gives us?\u00a0 More importantly…how can we know and receive God’s directions?\u00a0 This same question is posed in Psalm 119:9,<\/p>\n

“How can a young person stay on the path of purity?\u00a0 By living according to Your Word.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The most important thing that we can do is stay connected to God’s Word.\u00a0 The Psalmist goes on to say, “Your Word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path”<\/em> (Ps. 119:105).\u00a0 The Scriptures contain God’s instruction or directions for our daily living.\u00a0 The principles that we find are timeless and give us guidance.\u00a0 But, this requires us to read it, study it, and think about it.<\/p>\n

Secondly, we must ask God for His guidance.\u00a0 There is the well known Scripture in James 4:2 that says, “You do not have because you do not ask God”.\u00a0<\/em> Why do we NOT ask God for guidance?\u00a0 Well, some may not ask because we really don’t want to know.\u00a0 Or maybe we do not think that God cares about where we are going?<\/p>\n

Let Psalm 23 speak to your heart today.\u00a0 God is the Good Shepherd.\u00a0 He does care and He desires to guide you in the paths of righteousness.\u00a0 Will you re-commit yourself to pray and read His Word and follow His guidance?\u00a0 I know you may think you have a better way…but His is the best for you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“He guides me in paths of righteousness…” Read through Psalm 23 today slowly.\u00a0 Allow it to refresh you with the assurance of the Lord’s presence.\u00a0 He is your Shepherd. The Good Shepherd guides us.\u00a0 But let me remind you that … 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-451","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\/451","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=451"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":458,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/revisions\/458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}