Psalm 23 (Part 3)

Why will God leads us into the paths (dimensions) of his righteousness? Because of "Hashem (His name)". Not because of our doing, but simply because He has become our shepherd. The interesting thing is, after a while the sheep can walk in the path that the shepherd has led them through without help because they now have the Shepherd's mind. The sheep becomes mature in discerning what's good and what's evil, what's godly and what's not.

To Abraham, the Lord said "I know Abraham, he will command his household to do all that I've commanded him". We should remember that Abraham didn't start that way. Abraham had to learn obedient. Jesus learned obedient by the things he suffered, the ultimate word he uttered was "Not my will but Your will". One "will" must prevail and it’s going to be the Shepherd's will or else, he isn't the shepherd to begin with.

Learning obedience brings us to verse 4: "Yea, though I walk through the Gey Tzalmavet, I will fear no rah; for You art with me; Your shevet and Your staff they comfort me."..

Let me explain this word "Gey Tzalmavet". Often when we read this word in the King James Version and it means shadow of death. Other translations also have it like that, but what about if we flip the word "Tzalmavet" into reasonable vowel, it will turn to "tzalmut" meaning "Self-image" or "Identity" from the root word "Tzelem" which means God's image.

Let's step backward a bit here for understanding. Shadow of death is not "Death" literary, like many of us believe it to be. It has nothing first and foremost to do with "Death" but it has to do with "Your/our identity". If I were to re-read that verse 4, it would be "though I walk through things that want to proof my identity wrong, I will not be afraid because my identity is secured in my shepherd".

Daily we are bombarded with stuffs that wants to choke our identity in Christ, some even ask us to prove our identity. For example, Satan asked Jesus to prove his identity by turning stone into bread. The emphasis isn't on the bread but on His identity as the Son of God. Many a times, situations and circumstances want us to prove our identity, we can either choose to say "lo ira ra"(I'm not afraid) or we can start by proving ourselves to the situation, the end result of that is Fear.

Sheep has no strength to defend themselves, sheep solely depend on the shepherd to defend them. Time and time again we may try to defend ourselves, we may try prove that we are right while every other person is wrong. The end result of that will be, if we are actually sheep, fear and shame. When we make Christ our Lord, what we are saying as sheep is:

"I don't have my right again, I don't need to prove anything to anyone, I don't have any strength because I have given up, I'm not going to avenge myself of things done to me and so on... I'm just going to be sheep."

David could have dealt with Saul, but he couldn't because he's no longer the master/captain of his ship. At other time someone was cursing him and he replied "allow him, maybe the Lord has asked him to curse me...(See 2 Samuel 16:5)" David of old (remember Abigail and Nabal?) would have avenged himself but God has de-roped him.
He couldn't defend himself again, rather "Hashem" was now His shepherd. Despite his mistakes, the Lord became his shepherd.

Lastly, the rod is for correction while the staff is for comfort and encouragement. "And David encourage himself in the Lord". At other place, "God brought correction to David through Nathan the prophet". There's always a rod for correction for every sheep and staff for comforting the heart of the sheep. Both work together to produce the desired result that the shepherd is looking for in the sheep...

In conclusion, I don't want to re-explain verse 5 and 6.

I just want to mention the latter part of the last verse of that Psalms that reads "I shall dwell in the house of the Lord".

In this dispensation of Grace. We are not to dwell forever in a house built with bricks and blocks as house of the Lord. "We are the House of the Lord". We are the lively stones that's building up a house for the Lord and we've also be made priests and kings to our God. For we are a kingdom of priests not of the Leviticus order, rather of the endless life that's founded in Christ Jesus.

We must daily remind ourselves because it is possible to associate the brick and blocks with God's house. It's very easy to turn a place or a thing to "house of God". God dwell not in in the building built by men, he dwells alone in the house he builds by Himself. "Whose house are we" says Paul. I remember when the Lord started opening my eyes to that truth, he led me to be reciting the last verse as "I am the house of the Lord forever"

Grace and Peace.

Read Part 1 Here and Part 2 Here

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Psalm 23 (Part 2)

What does green pasture means..?

Green pasture is a place of feeding, learning and unlearning. It is a place of learning what to eat and what not to eat.

Often time, Green refers to Life in scriptural context and interpretations. In the day of Noah the bird that was sent out from the Ark came back with olive leaf (green-leave) meaning there is life once again. So, pasture can mean many thing but here it means life. We are to feed on Christ because he is the green pasture...

The word "mei menuchot" could also mean REST. Though it is rendered as "still waters" or "restful water" or "comforting water". Let us pieces this word.

In Ephesians it is said that "Christ will wash his bride by washing of the water by word"; in the book of John we have "out of his belly shall flow the living (restful) water". In John 4 "Christ is the living (restful) water".
The emphasis on "restful water" is in regards to the restoration of our soul. "You shall find rest for your soul" comes to play here.

We can as well interpret water to means "God's word" as we have it in Ephesians. Or we can take it as "Christ" Himself (For Christ is the Word of God according to book of revelation). Washing is pruning, we are the branches, and the husbandman keeps pruning or washing us by/with His word in other to grant rest to our soul.

Soul and Spirit aren't the same.

Soul is the seat of sensation, where feelings, emotions, will, desires and reasoning dominate. Because the soul is in connection with material world, hence it is written "we are not move by sight but by faith"

Faith is not of the soul but of the spirit. The purpose of Restful water is not for our Spirit rather is for our Soul; feeling that's not stable on God, emotion that's running wild like lion, desire that's soaring like eagles, self-will that's like an Ox. All these are what makes us to get into troubles many time. But, Christ becoming our shepherd, making us to feed on Him and leading us onto Himself as water of life leads to the restoration of our Soul. Our part to play is in allowing Him to be Lord not just the Saviour.

Verse 3."He restores my nefesh; He guides me in the paths of tzedek l'ma'an Shmo. (“He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake." NKJV).

1 Peter 2:25 says "We were as sheep going astray but are now returned to shepherd and bishop of our souls".

Note:" The shepherding work takes place in the soul not in the spirit.

Until we make Jesus our Shepherd not in words but by living that life, we are going to lack and our souls will not find rest. The path of righteousness will not be cleared to us."

To restore and to create are two different things. The former speaks of "putting things back to where they belonged" while the latter speaks of "to make a new thing". God’s aim is to restore man to the place where his soul would be in subjection to his spirit.

Hebrews 4 says "the word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing asunder (dividing or separating) soul and spirit...” The restoration is of the Souls. The spirit is already in this state at "Salvation", but the soul needs to journey in submission to the spirit- ultimately, to the Father of the spirit, God. The road to this is always repentance.

"Tzedek l'ma'an Shmo" means the same thing as "paths of righteousness For His name’s sake or for the sake of His name". The good thing here is that as a man or woman begins to experience Christ as Lord, he/she begins to learn righteousness (What is right and Just). He or she begins to turn away from his/her own way to God’s way. The quieter one's soul becomes, the more it will allow the spirit to soar.

Hence, "He (Christ) must increase but, I must decrease". The decreasing is of the soul while the increasing is of the spirit. And until a man get into verses 1-3 of this Psalm 23, the fear of shadow of death becomes a fearful thing.

Like Paul says, "I know whom I have believed". In our journey with God, we must come to a place where we can boldly declare "I know whom" not "I know what" I have believed. The former is of experience while the latter is of books/mental understanding.

Read Part 1 Here

.......to be continue...

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Psalm 23 (Part 1)

We all love to recite "surely goodness and mercy shall follow me...” 

It is a good thing to recite or lay claim on. But, where we suppose to lay emphasis on is not verses 4-6, those one are the resultant effects of verses 1-3.

Our study begins in Verse 1...”Hashem is my Ro'eh (Shepherd); I shall not lack".

I'm using a Hebrews version of that chapter and I'm going to explain the deeper meaning that such words carry.

Context!!!

David wrote Psalm 23 in unknown time. Some believe it was written while he was a shepherd boy attending to his father's sheep, while others believe the Psalm 23 was written during his time of fleeing away from Saul and the troubles of life. But the important thing here is; David was a shepherd boy before he became the king of Israel. His experience as a shepherd helped in writing this great Psalm 23.

The word "Hashem" means "the name" not "Lord" as we have it in English language. It is the custom of the Jews not to call out the original name of God, instead they use a "casual name" in place of God's name. God as we have it today does not mean God as a name. It’s a choice word used in replacement of His name. The "thou shall not call the name of the "Hashem" in vain" applies to all the manuscripts. There's a lot to dig in on this
.
The High Priests were the one worthy to call that "the name" once in every year during the atonement in the Holies of holy.

Let me take this a bit further, the name Yehoshua or Yeshua means "Hashem saves".

We see now how that becomes confusing to us because if Hashem literary means "the name" and Yeshua means "Hashem saves", then what we have is "the name saves". So, in translation the actual name of God is hidden, because the Lord doesn't refers to a name it just talk about the "office".
I'm an accountant, isn't a name but the office I possess or work in.
Having explain that. Let's go into the second thing we see in verse 1. "Shepherd"

When David was talking about shepherd. It is very important to understand what David was saying here. A shepherd is the one that "Lord-it-over-the-sheep". The shepherd have full control of the sheep, he decides what is what for the sheep, he rebukes, corrects, showers love, heals and sometimes leave the sheep to wander in the field for a purpose.

A shepherd isn't a shepherd if one of those is lacking, and you cannot be a sheep to someone who cannot lord-it-over-you. We saw that in the life of David. He didn't just know the God of Israel, he allowed the "office of Him being the Lord" to made manifest in his life.

Making Jesus the Saviour is pretty easy, the hardest part is making Him Lord or allowing Him to function in our lives as "the Lord" and until He is that, we will lack (the king James version rendered that as "want" but "lack" is more appropriate, we'll get to that in few minutes).

It is not that He is not Lord. Christ is indeed Lord, controlling the affairs of this world and beyond, but we can choose Him to be that in our lives or we can ask him to excuse himself from that office.

So, Psalm 23:1 can be rendered as "My shepherd is the one who lord-it-over me and by this, he makes sure I don't lack as a sheep".

The implication of this is: Whatever controls, rules or governs our lives is automatically our shepherd. If entertainment, sex, food, money or anything takes that place of ruling or controlling our lives, it does not matter if we say we are Christians, Christ is not our shepherd.
We need to get into this verse 1 and be sure that Christ is indeed our shepherd else the opposite of the remaining verses will be our portion.

In verse 2 we have "He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the "mei menuchot".

With the understanding of verse 1. I think it should be cleared to us that, a good shepherd will lead his sheep into a greener pasture. The sheep obligation is not to seek the green pasture, their job is to allow the shepherd to be the LORD. It is the job of a good shepherd to go before his sheep like Jesus said “the shepherd leads the sheep out"(see John 10:3). He goes before them not behind them.

So, the sheep are secure not in themselves but in the Shepherd because he is their "LORD". Using the example of David and his men of war when their wives, children, and their cities were plundered. David as a man of war didn't say "go to, let's pursue them" rather, he inquired from his Shepherd "should I go, would we overtake them, would we recover all?”
In the book of Jeremiah, it is said "in that day I will give the children of Israel a shepherd, David my servant". David in allowing God to shepherd him, he became also a shepherd like his Father. Sons are to become like their Father.

What does green pasture mean..?

to be continue..

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Here Comes Our Kingdom

What if this earth is just a prototype, a bad shadow of that which is good to come? What if we are just here to figure out things and get back to the better place where things work? Where there's no darkness or shadow, where everything is as clear as crystal. What if the family we all know now is nothing to compare to that organic, responsive family. What if the pattern and ways of training that our parents offer us is a bad picture of what a good parenting should look like. 

What if we are dead wrong about our perceptions? What if the little we think we know is as a result of bandwagon effects? What if what we often term sins, rebellion, stubbornness and disobedient isn't what they are called? What if all our good deeds, good behaviors, good moral are nothing good compare to that which is to be revealed?

What if all our ideas of God who created the universe is like single drop of contaminated water in a pure ocean? What if this idea of “born-again, salvation” that we often cry out on our lungs is much simpler than we think? What if there is no spiritual and physical? What if we are just in an energetic field that response to how we perceive thing?

What if……..?

What if……..?

This day, I'm coming to a place of keeping my mouth shut on many issues. I'm coming to a realization on daily basis that this God is a shocker and His kingdom is not what we are actually bargaining for because, we are in for a surprise that will shipwrecked our belief-systems. I'm not afraid to be caught in the wrong side of life (who know the wrong side of life?), I'm just afraid of my lack of seeking. 

Solomon was seeking the God of Israel among the gods and idols in high places, he sacrificed thousands of animals in order to find this God yet, God revealed himself to him without necessary saying to him; "Solomon go to Zion where your father placed the ark (1 King 3:1-15)". The seeking heart meets God, the place does not matter, what matters is the heart that's seeking.

We've built a lot things into the Kingdom that God is bringing to us, we've set a lot of standard. We've patterned how the Kingdom should look like and sometimes we've made it a thing of this present Earth and Heaven. We've set up how the Kingdom should be ruled, how this or that should rule over others. We've even compared it with the way the kings of Israel ruled in their time as if that was what God desired for Israel. In fact, the way kings in this world rule is totally erroneous.

We are too quick to forget that all the labourer received the same reward despite that they came into the field at different time. There was no greater/lesser one among them, all of them were equally paid, and all of them were kings. It was the goodness of “Good Man Of The House” to reward them according to His generosity not according to their works.

Our Kingdom comes with a new Earth and a new Heaven. This earth will be consumed away and the heaven over it will be rolled away like carpet (Revelation 21:1-9). 
Let us not mix these together; "the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ and He shall reign forever and ever" does not refer to that which is to come, it simply means God rules in the affairs of this falling world. It means Christ is in charge of this present world despite her falling state. 
God's ultimate purpose is to make all things NEW, to make the new Earth and the new Heaven a place where Christ’s Preeminence will be seen and felt, where darkness, sin and diseases will have no place to stand, where there is no more tears or death. This is the kingdom we are called to seek for, we are not called to make this present one into it.

No matter how we try, this earth is not the earth the Lord has given to us though, it was before, but now it’s a training ground for the new Earth that we'll be given at the Arrival of Our King and Kingdom.

Our Kingdom is not of this world, just as our brother and Lord said "My Kingdom is not of this world". I often wonder "is it that we don't read the word of Christ or are we just quick to forget what he said?" Our Kingdom is where we'll see our King face to face and no other one, where we can see all thing-NEW. Where there’s no clergy and laity!

We were made anew when we believed in Christ, we shall also be brought to that new Kingdom because a new wine must be put into a new wineskins. But first, we must of necessity receive our training here because we still live here, we must of necessity learn things as regard to our new Kingdom and those things we'll learn here, let us never equate them to that which is to come.

We must not compare the systems of this earth now with that which we were promised. The best parent we have here aren't the best rather a parasite in the eyes of eternity. The best teacher of our days isn't what we need because there’s none. The truth we hold dear now, we may have to let it go to really embrace the Truth Himself.

Have we ever wondered why God, our Father won't judge us based on what we know or the things we understand rather by WHO we have. Have we realized that He didn't put the Life into things rather in a Person? “He who has the Son, has Life”

While it’s good to live on the earth we have now. We must live life to the fullest; we must live in sincerity of heart not with eye-pleasing. We must never live like we have a continue city here, we don't have a continue city here now.

And it does not yet appear how glorious we look like now; we do look so terrible now in the face of this earth. Yea! There is yet to be difference between the tares and the wheat, between the sheep and the goat but, when our Kingdom come then shall we be revealed. Then shall we see and differentiate between the tares and the wheat, the sheep and the goats. “For as He is, so are we now in this world”.

Let us not put our efforts into that which is ready to be done away with rather, let us labour for our Kingdom, let this be our daily cry; “Thy Kingdom Come”. 

Let us live in sincerity and contentment. Let us hold this present Earth with all simplicity without getting attached or used to it. 

Who knows when our Kingdom will appear? Who knows when the Lover of our soul, our King will dazzle the earth with his blazing glory? Who knows when our appearances will be changed in a twinkle of an eye? 

And who knows when death shall knock at our door?

Here Comes Our Kingdom with New Jerusalem…but not of this world, but of that which is to come….

The Bride says: “Come quickly Lord!”

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