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The Lord is Our Good Shepherd! (Part 5)

(Overcomer Wu)

“The Lord is my Shepherd... He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake ” --Psalms 23:1-3

Last time, we saw from Psalms 23:3a how much we need our soul to be refreshed and restored constantly, and that true lasting refreshments and restoration of our soul and spirit can only come from the Lord Jesus alone! It is a sad fact that many people, including Christians, have turned to worldly music, transcendental meditation, sedative medications, various forms of entertainment, and vacations in an attempt to seek their human form of refreshing as a substitute for Christ, but we know that none of them will ever last. As Christians, many of us already know that only Christ can suffice our soul's inner longing for the true refreshments for our soul's and spirit's weariness and thirst; yet we insists on being disobedient to the heavenly vision by caving into the worldly and selfish ways of gratifying ourselves, but in the end we inevitably shall face the futility of our human ways and tragically face the consequences of our disobedience to the heavenly visions graciously given to us by God. In short, we have seen true restoration and refreshment to our soul and spirit can only be found in the Person of Christ, our Good Shepherd! This week we shall continue with the next clause of Psalm 23:3b

"He Leads Me in the Paths of Righteousness for His Name's sake"

"He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake” (v. 3). Left to ourselves, we will easily stray from the paths of righteousness – that is God's ordained paths for us. We are prone to get lost. Thank the Lord that He has not left us without His constant guidance. He leads us both by His Word and by His Spirit. The Word of God is "a lamp unto [our] feet, and a light unto [our] path” (Psa 119:105). A “lamp unto our feet” is more like a lamp that we carry which provides only sufficient light to show us where to take our next step; while the “light unto our path” is more like the daylight that gives us more of a longer distance vision of where He is guiding us. The Lord has also given us His Spirit (Rom 8:9) to live within us and lead us and to guide us into all the truths (Jn 16:13), which are the ways of God. However, we know that sheep do not have very good vision to see for a long distance. I believe they can't see clearly anything over 20 yards even in broad daylight. This is also significant as it does apply to us spiritually since the Lord wants us to live a life of full dependency upon Him from the very beginning when He puts man in the garden of Eden with the tree of Life, which represented His eternal Life, to supply us, lead and guide us moment by moment. Instead, man has chosen to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which represents a life of independence from God, among other things. Knowledge as we know fosters independence in general. As a child grows in knowledge by being educated in schools and from the experiences of the older people, they become more and more independent from their parents until one day, they can live and make a living entirely independent of their parents. From the human standpoint, they is good, but from the spiritual and God's standpoint, it is not good for man to be independent from Him. I believe this is one of the reasons why God said in Genesis 2:18, “The Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone,'” because He wants to be our constant Companion and He wants us to live a life of full dependency on Him.

“He leads me in the paths of righteousness” is also translated in some other versions as "He leads us in the right paths,” that is, the paths that are right in accordance with His righteous ways and demands. The paths that the Lord is leading us may not always seem right to us or paths that we would naturally choose. Who would choose a path that is fraught with danger, sicknesses, poverty, persecution, bankruptcy or alienation from our own family members for the sake of the Lord's Name? Yes, the paths that the Lord leads us to trod on are usually not very pleasant, because it is called the path of the cross. Matthew 16:24 says that if we are to follow the Lord – that is follow the way He is leading us – we need to take up our cross and deny ourselves. The path of the cross and the way of self-denial is not very pleasing to the ears of the natural man, but it is the path of righteousness! Many have chosen to ignore this right path of the cross in deference for the path of ease and passing pleasure at the expense of missing the Lord and the lasting rewards and the incorruptible inheritance both in this age and in the coming age. Some Christians have even dismissed the path of the cross as the out-of style, “old-fashion” path. Yet God said in Jeremiah 6:16: “Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; then you will find rest for your souls.” Yet it is a lamentable fact that many dear Christians have opted to not follow the way of our Good Shepherd and said “we will not walk in it” (Jere 6:16b). It does not give God any pleasure to see His children suffer or to live a life of sickness, stress, pain, and grief, but He knows what it takes to perfect us into the image of Christ and to refine us of all the dross within our hearts so that we will come forth as gold (Job 23:10) – expressing only the divine nature.

The paths of righteousness are often not the popular paths and they can be very arduous and difficult paths, paths that may lead us into the crucibles of fire, like the three Hebrew young men: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego in Daniel chapter three. His paths may lead us into the desert as God led the Old Testament Jews into the wilderness when they came out of Egypt, and that was not just for a year or two but for forty long years! God even led His own incarnated Son Jesus Christ into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil for forty days. Who led Jesus there? It was not some evil spirits, but the very Spirit of God Himself (Luke 4:1). Thus, we see the right paths may lead us into the valley of deep darkness – "the valley of the shadow of death” (Psa 23:4). But if He leads us there and we receive the grace and the supply of the Spirit and the Word through it, we shall surely come forth as gold. When life seems to be unbearably miserable, and we can’t even see our hand in front of our face because of the deep darkness we're in, know that if He has led us there, He will not only lead us by the hand, or carry us if necessary, through it but will also supply us with His all-sufficient grace to bear through it. If He leads us there, it is the right path for the fulfillment of His eternal purpose.

What then is the purpose of all these hardships and trials that we need to go through for? He leads me in the paths of righteousness "for His Name’s sake;” in other words, for the glory and exaltation of His Name. If we truly love the Lord, we will care more about His Name, His glory, and His interests than our own... just as our love the the saints is shown by “esteeming others better than ourselves (Phi 2:3b) and “let each of you look out not only for his own interests (or good), but also for the interests (or good) of other” (Phi 2:4). We need to learn to pray, "Lord, if it pleases You to bruise me, it pleases me. If You can derive Your glory from my sickness and my dire situation, then it is good enough for me. If You want me to suffer for Your Name's sake, then that is the way I choose. It is not not my will but may Your will be done."

We need to remember that we exist for God and not the other way around. Yet many Christians seemed to treat God as if He exists to serve us and our wishes. The reason for God creating man on this earth is to bring glory to Him or express Him as well as to represent Him with His authority when it comes to dealing with His enemies. This is made very clear to us in Genesis chapter one verse twenty six where God revealed to us the reason for our creation: “Let Us make man in Our image, in Our likeness, and let them rule over... all the earth.” Just as a sculpture of a man made in the image and the likeness of say king David was created to express king David, so man was created in the image and the likeness of God to express Him. Yet a dead motionless static sculpture can only express that person to a limited extent even though it may have been made perfectly down to the tee to include the person's moles and other idiosyncrasies. Therefore, God put man in front of the the tree of Life, which as I mentioned earlier represented the Life of God, so that by partaking of and receiving the Life of God, we can express Him to the fullest extent. Imagine the sculpture of king David is capable of receiving also the life of David into it, it would then be able to express David not only in the image of David, but also the likeness of how David talks, walks, laughs, his compassion, his love, and his every action and disposition. Though Adam failed in this regards by rejecting the tree of Life instead he partook of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which distanced him from God, we Christians in the New Testament are privileged to be made partakers of the divine nature according to second Peter chapter one verse 4! Thus, we are able to express God in full corporately as the Church, which is His fulness (Eph 1:22-23).

Indeed, God does not exists to be our genie to meet our needs and serve our purposes; rather, we exists for His great purposes. The Bible says all things are of Him and from Him and for Him and to Him (Rom 11:36; Col 1:16). All things, even your problems – are ordered, ordained, and organized by Him and for His Name’s sake. What if God choose to put us in hard places and undergo afflictions so that people around us can see that God is expressed through our unwavering thankfulness and trust in Him and in His arrangements for us? It is often through these kinds of situations that God is glorified and other people are drawn to Him. Job was a tremendous example of one who demonstrated such unwavering trust and thankfulness to God in spite of the tragic events that killed all his family members, except his wife; he was robbed of all his herds of cattle, sheep, camels and other livestock all in one day! Yet he could still worship God and say, “though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15). Are we able to utter these words and worship God if we were in his situation? It seems that some of us immediately complain when we just have a slightly lower salary than we would like to earn ,or are put under a demanding boss, or are given a poor health that prevents us from engaging in many activities in life that other people are able to enjoy. However, if we can worship God and demonstrate our unwavering faith in Him in spite of all these hardships and afflictions, then the Lord's Name shall be glorified.

A great example in the Bible was Joseph in Genesis chapter 39 where he was unjustly imprisoned for thirteen long years for a crime he did not commit, after having been sold into Egypt by his own brothers. Yet we've read of not a single word of complain or protest came out of Joseph's mouth. Rather, he humbly accepted God's will and arrangements. Thus, God was able to work His purpose out through Joseph and He was glorified through the wisdom in His arrangements of Joseph's sufferings that ultimately brought about the deliverance of God's people in the times of famine. Therefore, can we say, "Yes, Lord, I gladly accept Your will, even if it means my sufferings, and walk in that path as long as it uplifts Your Name. I even thank You for the many crosses You have given me to perfect me and to glorify You"? Everything in heaven and on earth revolves around Him. He is the Center and the Sun (Psa 84:11, Rev 22:5) of the universe. When every creature and everything in the universe acknowledge God as the Center and upholds His Name above all names, He is glorified. When that goal is eventually attained, Revelations 21:23 tells us, “And the city (the New Jerusalem) has no need of the sun nor of the moon that they should shine in it, for the glory of God illumined it....” This indicates that the New Jerusalem is where God is glorified to the utmost and to such extent that we in turn receive the benefits of His glory as the shining sun that illumines us!

The way we live – the way we respond to pressure, to heartache and headache, to the fiery furnace, or to the desert, the way we respond to the valley of deep darkness – is always very revealing about where we stand in our faith in God and how obedient we are in following our Shepherd on the paths of righteousness. John Wesley once said, "Our job is to give the world a right opinion of God." We know in our heart that He is an awesome, incredible Lord, Lover, Leader and a Shepherd-God. Yet for the world and the people around us to know the conviction of our faith depends on our action and reaction in the hard times. It is on those paths of carrying our cross that we are afforded the opportunity to proclaim Him to be the great Shepherd that He is. Whether or not we follow Him faithfully on the paths of righteousness, we need to keep in mind that His reputation is at stake. Let Him choose the right path for us. Our duty and responsibility as His sheep is simple, just follow Him where He leads, for He knows what is best for us. Also, we should never compare the path He chooses for us verses the paths that He chose for someone else. In John chapter 21, Peter did just that: the Lord revealed how he will suffer and die on the Lord's behalf: “This He spoke, signifying by what death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, 'Follow Me.'” Then Peter immediately ask about the destiny of the apostle John in the next verse, “then Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following, ... Peter, seeing him, said to Jesus, 'But Lord, what about this man?'” Jesus' answer was: “If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? You follow Me” (Jn 21:22). In other words, it is none of our business how the Lord may lead others; we just need to be concerned about we ourselves being faithful to follow the Lord wherever He may lead on the paths of righteousness. Some of us are going through paths that most of the rest of the believers will never experience. However, let us stay the course and continue to receive from Him as our Source of supply and all that we need. Let our Good Shepherd choose the path for us. When we meet the Lord face to face, we will look back and I'm sure we'll certainty say, "Lord, You did all things well. Thank You for leading me to where exactly I needed to pass through to be refined as pure gold to express You without spot or blemish."