“You are My flock, My People. What does a Shepherd do with His flock? For His flock? Hear the things I do for you.

“I lead you in the places where you should go. My Word says it well – I lead you to green pastures and still waters. Green pastures for good feeding and still waters for deep drinking. In pastures of green and waters of stillness you need not fight for your nutrition, for your daily needs. For they are easily, readily available for you.

“Why do the sheep follow their Shepherd? Because they KNOW and TRUST that He leads them into the best places for them. When would you see a sheep stand up and say, “Do not lead me here, I know the better way to go?” When you see such a wayward sheep leave the guidance of the Shepherd, what happens? The Shepherd goes after the sheep. The Shepherd does not leave the sheep to his own volatile and harmful thinking. But brings it back into the place of protection and provision.

“Such a simple picture. Such a humble analogy. Yet you, My highest creation, are so much more to Me than sheep. For you, I your Shepherd, did indeed lay down My life. For each of you I painstakingly and lovingly wrote out a destiny for your life. To you I grant My own Spirit to live within you and guide you constantly. Yes, for you I gave My own life on earth, and now My own Spirit continually. No end to My giving. No end to My leading and nurturing.

“So why do you think of leaving Me and going out on your own? Why do you think My path for you is not as good as the one you could forge? What room is there in all I have done for you for you to doubt Me? To turn aside from Me? The one who Loves you more than life itself.

“My Psalm you call 23 is a Psalm of protection, provision, and promise for your entire life. I rejoice that it is a commonly known Psalm among you. But sometimes commonly known leads to complacency of knowing. Of being so familiar that the words no longer have their impact upon you. Picture a lone, ragged, hungry sheep out in the wilderness with no one to care for him. On a certain path to death. Picture a Shepherd coming along and rescuing him. Read your Psalm 23 with this picture in mind. Envision the incredible gifts and new life suddenly thrust upon the dying, malnourished sheep. Imagine the difference to that animal. Transfer this humble vision to yourself and your life, the life of your family. What in this picture would you not want? Everything in the picture leaves you without the NEED for want.

“Think on this. Meditate on these verses. And wonder anew at all I have in store to give you. Then look to your own life. Are you that sheep in the wilderness? Are you that sheep who constantly runs off from the Shepherd and must be rescued from trouble? Or are you the sheep who truly follows and lives a life without doubt, without want?

“The choice is yours. I stand ready for you. Amen.”
—–
Notes:

Psalm 23: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I 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 have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows. Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

John 10:11: I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. 

Isaiah 40:11: He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.

Ezekiel 34:11-12: For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. 

Hebrews 13:20-21: Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in uswhat is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Revelation 7:17: For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; He will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Psalm 139:16: Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.

John 14:25-26: These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.

I Corinthians 2:12: Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.