Psalm 23:1-6

As I read; “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want“, my thinking backtracked to Thursday’s writing, when after some reflection on John 20:19-20, I asked;

What kind of God would lead us into circumstances so heartbreaking and dangerous and then come and say “Peace be with you?” Well…its the same God, who is also called the Prince of Peace who said, “Do not think I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword“.

As I was reading this morning’s passage, “the sword” in Hebrew 4:12 also came to mind; “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart“.

With my salvation came an understanding that I was no longer my own; that I had been purchased and now belonged to Another. With my salvation also came a spirit that had somehow become awakened to the scriptures. I assumed this was because the new Spirit in me was compatible with the Spirit who inspired those printed words in my bible. All this to say, as His, I gave Him, as best as I knew how, the freedom to use this sword, this Spirit of Truth, in my heart. This process, where the razor edge of truth and reality touch the untrue and darkened places of my heart, is what I have come to think of as “the circumcision that is of the heart, by the Spirit of Truth, that Paul mentions in Romans 2:29.

As I read Psalm 23 this morning it just seemed to invite me to consider how integral the Spirit and the Word have been as the Shepherd has used them in leading me though valleys with long shadows where I thought my soul had died and then into green pastures and quiet waters where my soul has acquired peace.

“I shall not want” is a large statement. I think if we were to sit down and write our “personal history of wanting” it would tell us much. I have come to believe that the sword with its cutting and mending process has had an effect on my wantings. As a young Christian, I began with almost no wants. I was totally happy just knowing I belonged to Him. Somehow over time things changed as I got busier serving the Lord. Wanting began to surface in my prayers, “Oh Lord, I want to please You. Oh Lord, I want a clean heart.” For many years wanting more of God characterized my longings and prayers.

It was just a few years ago, the Lord reminded me of my beginnings with Him that were so simple and free of want. Even now, I look across the page in my bible and see one of the first prayers that ever formed itself in my heart;

“One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to meditate in His temple.”

Ironically, at the peak of my religious zeal, I felt close to giving up. I was privately in despair regarding the idea that I might know Christ in a more intimate way. Fortunately, He had heard my prayer and never forgot it. Fortunately He is faithful when we are not. As the scalpel was withdrawn recently, and I began to mend, I noticed that my wanting level had gone way down similar to those days I had known as young believer. I attribute this to the Lord, having cut something away from my heart that was dead but was posing as something alive in the form of a zeal of wanting more of God.

Truth unbalanced can have a radical impact on the formation of our spirits. Even though as a new follower of Christ, I heard Him clearly proclaim His love for me and delight in me; I was simultaneously hearing from the establishment, by way of sermon and song, that my heart was inherently wretched and destined to stray. I was led to participate in somber ceremonies of remembrance and taught to deeply introspect about my fallen and depraved nature. I arose from the biscuit and the thimble, redoubling my commitment to resist my flesh and live for God. If I could create a formula for spiritual despair, this is it.

While it is true that in Adam I am a fallen man; it is truer still that in-Christ, I am a resurected  one. Today, when I am tempted to think my heart is primarily wretched, I pretty quickly hear the Lord say that He is delighted in me and that my heart is clean before Him. The advocates of fallen-heart models of introspective-repentance will tremble for my soul because they believe that we must carry our cross of brokenness so that our sin will be ever before us like David.  The thinking follows that if we do this He will not take HIs Holy Spirit from us. Their belief system mandates that loosing sight of the fallen nature will lead to heresy and/or unrighteous living. While this type of spirituality might look impressive, it only produces Pharisees and anxious saints who have not yet learned to rest in the finished work of the cross.

Many saints are rediscovering the identities God desired to impart to them at their rebirth. They have not lost sight of the reality that their fallen natures can be stimulated by sin but they have learned that introspection and doubling down on commitment is a trap. Instead of fearing and honoring the power of their fallenness, they are learning that a deeper Truth resides within them. They are discovering that Christ, the resurrected One is resident within them with HIs kingdom and that He alone is the hope of any glory and light that their life might produce. They are celebrating the fact that they are brand new creatures in Christ and that this is a far superior reality, when they learn to rest in it, than their depravity.

Father, as our hearts are awakened to the fulness of our salvation may we cast off our sackcloth and ashes. May we fill our lamps with oil and dress ourselves for the celebration feast that is set before us even now. May our lamps be continually full of oil and grow brightly with the joyful radiance of new life as we make our way triumphantly to that ultimate affair; the Marriage Supper of Your Lamb. May it never escape the notice of our hearts that we are not just guests at the feast; rather we are Your Bride. Consummate Your love in our hearts that we may glow with a holy fire. May this dying world see us as our heads are rested upon Your breast. Amen.