The Lord Is My Shepherd

Greetings in the name of Jesus ! This is Rob Haymes. This is 15 Minutes With Jesus. Wherever two or three are gathered together in My name, Jesus said, there am I in the midst of them. To those of you who love Him in truth: mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied. (Jude 1:2)

Today we're going to talk about The Lord Is My Shepherd. Psalm 23 :1-6: The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will 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 anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. 

David wrote this Psalm by the Holy Spirit. Starting out in verse 1: The Lord is my Shepherd; The Lord is our Shepherd. He is the One. The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. The reason I won't want is because the Lord is my Shepherd. I follow Him. I confess Jesus as my Lord. He is my Lord, and He is my Shepherd, and He leads me in paths of righteousness for His Name's sake. He leads me beside the still waters. He causes me to lie down in green pastures. You know, a sheep likes green pastures, where there is plenty of good food. You won't lack if the Lord is your Shepherd; you shall not want. He will lead you to green pastures. He will provide for your every need as you follow Him. He is your Lord. He is your Shepherd, and He will lead you beside still waters, where you can get a nice, cool drink. And, He will restore our souls. He leads us in paths of righteousness for His Name's sake; this is how He restores our souls; He leads us in these paths of righteousness; but that is only if He is our Shepherd; if we are following Him. If we follow Him. Jesus said, Follow Me. As we follow Him, He leads us in these righteous paths, and things are exposed in our souls, and as we humble ourselves, and we repent, and we draw near to Him, He will cleanse us, He will cleanse our souls, He will restore our souls. Our souls have been destroyed through sin. The first thing Jesus did to restore our souls is to offer Himself a living sacrifice for our sins. Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the World. And that's why He came; to take away our sins, and restore our souls, to make us sound, to heal us, to make us sons and daughters of the Living God. And He loved us; the Father loved us, so much that He gave His Son to be a living sacrifice on the cross for our sins. And Jesus loved us, and He obeyed the Father. He died for our sins, and He was buried, but on the third day the Father raised Him from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit, justified from all those sins, and we, when we give ourselves to Jesus, we are baptized into His death, burial, and resurrection; crucified for our sins, raised again for our justification.

Verse 4: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, why?, for you are with me. Jesus is with us because we follow Him. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. So, what is the rod? The rod and the staff represent the authority that the Lord has. All authority in Heaven and Earth has been given to Jesus, Hallelujah! And He's our Shepherd, and He's leading us, and as we are walking in obedience to Him, and He sends us, we have authority, we have His authority. And His authority will comfort us, because we know, beyond a shadow of any doubt, that Jesus triumphed over all the powers and authorities of darkness. It is written in His Word, Because He humbled Himself to the death of the cross, the Father has given Him a name above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow, in Heaven, on the Earth, and under the Earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. The Father has seated Him in Heavenly places, and He has seated us in Him. When we are in Jesus, we are seated in Him at the right hand of the Father, far above principalities, power, might, and dominion, and every wicked spirit. That's the rod; that's the staff; that's the authority that is given to Jesus, and as we are in Him, we are protected by that staff; that rod. And even though the Lord leads us through the valley of the shadow of death, we will not fear evil, because of the authority that is given to Him, because He triumphed over all the powers of evil, all the power of darkness. He is our Lord, and He is our Shepherd. He is our shield and our exceeding great reward, and we are with Him; we are following Him; we are His sheep.

Verse 5 says, You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. The Lord provides abundantly for us right in front of our enemies. Even though our enemies are round about us, the Lord is providing for us, and He anoints our head with oil. Let's turn to First Samuel, chapter 15. This is where we read about Saul, and how he rejected the Word of the Lord, and how the Lord rejected him from being king. When Samuel came to him, in verses 22 & 23, he said…Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the Word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king. 

Let's go to chapter 16, verse 1: Now the Lord said to Samuel, How long will you mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go; I am sending you to Jesse the Bethlehemite. For I have provided Myself a king among his sons. Samuel obeyed the Lord. Samuel walked in the authority of the Lord because he was obedient to the Lord. So he came to Bethlehem, and he got together with Jesse and his sons, and Jesse brought each one of his sons before Samuel, and Samuel said, one after another, the Lord has not chosen this one. Verses 9-13,  Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, Neither has the Lord chosen this one. Thus Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel. And Samuel said to Jesse, The Lord has not chosen these. And Samuel said to Jesse, Are all the young men here? Then he said, There remains yet the youngest, and there he is, keeping the sheep. And Samuel said to Jesse, Send and bring him. For we will not sit down till he comes here. So he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, with bright eyes, and good-looking. And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him; for this is the one! Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel arose and went to Ramah. 

So David was anointed by the prophet Samuel and the Holy Spirit came upon him from that day forward. David was a man after God's own heart, and that's why God chose him. David loved God, and he followed his Shepherd; he was led by the Spirit. The goodness of Psalm 23 came to David and us through the anointing of the Holy Spirit. And, as you know, if you have read the scriptures, David did many things, including killing Goliath, which was an amazing accomplishment, but he did that by the power of the Holy Spirit, and by the Word of God. David loved God, he wrote the Psalms; he wrote Psalm 23 under the anointing of the Holy Ghost, and in verse 5, You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. He understood that; he understood the anointing.

So, the Lord is my Shepherd, number one, the Lord is my Shepherd. Jesus is my Lord, He's my Shepherd and I follow Him. We like to quote Psalm 23, but the blessings that are spoken of therein belong only to those that follow their Shepherd. Going back to 1Sam 15:22, …Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Does the Lord delight in our religious practices as much as He delights in us hearing His voice; Jesus said My sheep hear my voice and they follow me; that's what the Lord delights in; hearing His voice, obeying Him, following Him. Continuing on in verse 22, Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. And, that's what happens to many people; they don't stay with Jesus. They say that they are saved, they say, Jesus is my Lord, but they don't obey Him; they are not led by the Holy Spirit to follow their Shepherd. They are not walking in the Spirit, hearkening unto the voice of their Shepherd, and they get into rebellion, and when you get into rebellion, you fall into witchcraft. Only the Lord can deliver us out of that rebellion and out of that witchcraft, but if any one of us will humble ourselves and repent, God will do it; He will forgive us, He will cleanse us of that, and bring us into obedience.

Let's go to John 10:1-18, Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.   But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. Notice, the sheep hear the voice of the Shepherd. And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers. Jesus used this illustration, but they did not understand the things which He spoke to them. Then Jesus said to them again, Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.   But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd. There is one Shepherd. His name is Jesus. Jesus is our Shepherd, and He proved this when He laid down His life for us. Thank you Jesus. Greater love has no man than this, He said, that a man lay down his life for his friends. He said, you are my friends if you do whatever I command you. Verse 17, Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father. 

In Mathew chapter 7, at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said,  Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness! They weren't following their Shepherd; they weren't following their Lord. They were doing their own will; they were in rebellion, and in the sin of witchcraft. Even though the Holy Spirit had manifested through them in times past, they were not following their Shepherd. Jesus said, I only do the will of my Father; what I see Him doing. He will lead us by His Spirit to do His will. We follow our Shepherd by the Holy Spirit. We hear His voice and we follow Him.

Jesus saved us from our sins and washed us in His own blood by the sacrifice of Himself to make us sons and daughters of the living God, to follow our Lord, our Shepherd, to do the will of God from our hearts, seeking His glory and honor, seeking to please the Father, not ourselves any more. Not to live in the flesh, to do our own will, seeking our own glory and pleasure, and then go to Heaven, because we are "saved". No, it won't work. It's a lie. The Spirit is given for us to love God, and serve Him, and obey Him, following Jesus, our Great Shepherd, and loving one another. He said, This is my commandment, that you love one another. We cannot say that we love God if we hate our brother; if we won't forgive our brother or our sister. We are in darkness, and we don't love God. The Apostle John said, This is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. He said, If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

Heb 13:20&21  Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen!

Thank you for reading this message from 15 Minutes With Jesus at roberthaymes.com . May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you who love Him in truth, Amen. (2 Cor 13:14)