OUR
GUIDE
“The Lord is my
shepherd; I shall not want. He
maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still
waters. He restoreth my soul: he
leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy
staff they comfort me. Thou
preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my
head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I
will dwell in the house of the Lord for
ever.”
Psalm
23
King James
Version
We sing the song
“He leadeth me, O blessed thought!” but are we following Him? Are we allowing Him to lead us up to the
mountain top of joy or are we going our own way which leads us to the valley of
despair? He will guide and lead us
but He won’t make us follow. He
gives us a choice to follow Him, or to follow satan. Nobody can make that choice for us. Each one of us has to make the decision
to follow Him.
We will never be
able to lead someone to Jesus if we aren’t following Him ourselves. I think that if we would listen with our
hearts that we would Him saying “I love you and I long to lead you into
happiness and joy.” He loves us so
much that He died for us. There is
no greater love than the love of Jesus and our Heavenly
Father.
Sometimes when
we take trips we get lost even while following the directions on a map. If we will follow Jesus, we will never
get lost. There is a song that I
used to sing in Sunday School “He knows the way through the wilderness.” He not only knows the way through the
wilderness; He also knows the way through the difficult situations in our
lives.
There are times
when we allow our hearts to become cold and indifferent because of the hateful
and cruel words and hateful and cruel actions that have been said and done to
us. It is then that our Shepherd
plucks the weeds of bitterness, hatred, jealousy, criticism and unforgiveness
from our hearts and makes our hearts tender. He gives us compassion, forgiveness,
kindness, and unconditional love for our families, for our friends and for a
world that is lost and starving to know that somebody cares if they live or
die.
Are you
following Jesus today? Are you
allowing Him to guide your footsteps and also your decisions? Have you experienced the heights of joy
which are found when we follow Him?
Have you laughed with Him and rejoiced with Him when a sinner was
saved? There is no greater joy in
the entire world than following Jesus and allowing Him to lead us up into the
joyous mountains of happiness.
There’s another
song that I love. It’s called “Have
you decided to follow Jesus?” How
about it? Have you decided to
follow Jesus? If so, are you
willing to follow Him all the way or just until He takes you out of your comfort
zone? Sometimes He asks us to do
something that may not be convenient for us or fit into what we had planned for
that day. Are you willing to do it
even if it means a change of plans?
I don’t think it
was convenient for Jesus to be tortured and die on the cross for us that day but
He did it because He loves us so much.
Our service to Him always comes back to this question “How much do I love
Him and how much am I willing to give up for Him? Remember, our level of service depends
on our level of love for Him. How
much do you love Him?
Joanne Lowe
October 16, 2007