Present & Personal

Ps.23:¹ “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” [NKJV, with emphasis]

In this scripture alone, David points out so many things to us. David says, the Lord is my shepherd. He did not say the Lord was my shepherd and that is so instructive. It is not enough that God was good to you last month or last year. It is not enough that God was good to your father, or that the Bible says that God was a God of miracles. It is important to us that God is a God of miracles today. God is I AM THAT I AM; God is always in the present. God is not I will be that I will be, neither is God I was that I was. God is I AM THAT I AM – always in the present. Our challenge is that we live in time; we have a beginning, and everybody will have an end, so we think linearly.

God does not exist in time and very often, we struggle to wrap our minds around it. We try to put God in time and that is not possible because God exists in eternity. Understanding this will really help you in your walk with God. God has never experienced a yesterday, not once! It also means that He does not have a tomorrow; God is eternally present. He is Alpha and Omega; He is there in your future and He is here now, and He is the same. This truth eradicates regrets because I know that God can take care of my past. Your past is like present to Him, so He can just sort it out and you would be fine. He takes care of my worries; by the time I arrive at tomorrow, God is there. I AM will still be I AM tomorrow, ever present.

Ps.23:¹ “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” For David, and I pray for us too, it is not enough that the Lord is a shepherd. It is not enough that the Lord is the shepherd. It is flattery, but not enough that the Lord is our shepherd. David says the Lord has to be my shepherd. The Great I AM is my personal shepherd. Obviously, there is a cooperate dealing with God, but God wants to deal with us individually. God wants to be your shepherd, call you by name, and lead you out by yourself. A lot of us are familiar with how shepherds lead their sheep, right? Mostly, shepherds use shared infrastructure. Meaning twenty shepherds can keep their sheep together at night. In the morning, each shepherd will stand at the door, make a call sound to their sheep, and walk away. Guess what? As rowdy as the place is, every sheep would follow his own shepherd. Shepherds do not have to fight over sheep because sheep know the voice of their shepherd. It is a strange thing to be God’s child and not know His voice. I pray that oddity will come to an end in your life, in Jesus Name. To experience real fulfillment and freedom, God has to be your personal shepherd.

Prayer: Lord, You are my Alpha and my Omega, my Shepherd, I delight in You, in Jesus Name. Amen!