{"id":633,"date":"2015-03-31T11:37:59","date_gmt":"2015-03-31T11:37:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/?p=633"},"modified":"2015-03-31T17:35:16","modified_gmt":"2015-03-31T17:35:16","slug":"the-lord-is-my-shepherd-36","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/the-lord-is-my-shepherd-36\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lord is my Shepherd (36)"},"content":{"rendered":"

“…I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever”<\/em><\/p>\n

The Good Shepherd never leaves the sheep. \u00a0Here David uses the word forever. \u00a0Forever is a word that we read in fairy tales and…the Bible. \u00a0It is beyond our understanding and is somewhat “other worldly”. \u00a0It deals with that looming nemesis called “time”. \u00a0Time sets the boundaries around everything…good and bad. \u00a0For example, we may say, “Time heals all wounds”, but then we say, “all good things come to an end”. \u00a0Our very lives are contained within the constraints of time. \u00a0It is a constant reminder of our own mortality. \u00a0Even a “long long time” still has an end at some point. \u00a0It is no wonder that, in our fairy tales, we write time out of the story. \u00a0 The happy ending is when things do not end…”and they lived happily ever after”. \u00a0There is no measure, no ending for “forever”.<\/p>\n

The Scripture tells us that forever is not a fairy tale. \u00a0A fairy tale is a “make believe” attempt to offer some comfort to those longing for something more in this world. \u00a0It is the “wish and a prayer” fantasy that briefly gives an escape to the realities of this life. \u00a0 Some see the Bible as the same thing. \u00a0It was Karl Marx who said that religion is the “opiate of the masses”. \u00a0He believed that God was merely a fairy tale manufactured to bring hope to a world headed for certain doom. \u00a0Friend, if there is no God and if all we have is fairy tales to bring us temporary relief than we are hopeless, but…<\/p>\n

…there is more! \u00a0The Bible also talks about forever. \u00a0However, this is no fairy tale dream that is used as a drug to ease the suffering of humankind on the way to annihilation. \u00a0It is the truth about the power of God that vanquishes the enemy of death and opens the door to “eternity”. \u00a0 It is the proclamation of the reality of the Kingdom of God and the truth that we were created to be an eternal part of that Kingdom! \u00a0To come into the flock of the Good Shepherd is more than changing care givers…it is changing the landscape of life itself. \u00a0It is transforming that which is limited to that which is limitless! \u00a0It takes that which is mortal and makes it immortal! \u00a0The Apostle Paul says that we have “taken off mortality” and “put on immortality”.<\/p>\n

Once again, it is the cross of Christ that makes this possible. \u00a0Living forever is no longer a fairy. \u00a0It is true that we were facing a certain end in this world but God came bursting into our world and made it possible for us to experience forever. \u00a0Over the next few days as we work our way to the cross, we will look into this powerful truth.<\/p>\n

Today, rest in the truth that there is a forever and it is no fairy tale!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“…I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever” The Good Shepherd never leaves the sheep. \u00a0Here David uses the word forever. \u00a0Forever is a word that we read in fairy tales and…the Bible. \u00a0It is beyond our understanding … 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-633","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\/633","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=633"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":641,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633\/revisions\/641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}