PSALM 23 A sheep doesn't lead itself; it follows the Shepherd. The sheep trusts, submits to, and obeys the Shepherd because it has learned in following that the Shepherd knows best how to tend His sheep. It is in the Shepherd that the sheep will know rest, hope, confidence and peace. It is in believing the Shepherd that we enter into His rest, the rest He has prepared for all who will but believe Him. The evidence that a sheep believes the Shepherd is seen in the sheep following the Shepherd. Life for a sheep is a changed life. It is a life of surrendered dependance, not some craven relinquishment, but a surrender that comes from confidence in the eternal love and faithfulness of the Shepherd. It is in living dependance upon the Shepherd that the sheep enters into what it actually means to be a sheep, to be fully a sheep in every detail. Wholeness of life is found in believing and then receiving all the provision the Shepherd has in store for the sheep, day by day. The...
KINGDOM LOVE What produces Kingdom Love, the Love of God manifest in His people? It comes from a pure heart, one made clean by the Blood of Christ, His forgiveness. He alone can make our hearts clean as He gives us a new heart and a new spirit. He causes us to stand before Him holy, blameless and beyond reproach. A pure heart is marked by singlemindedness in following the Lord Jesus in every detail of life. It comes from a clear conscience, where God's grace in the forgiveness of all our sin sets us free by breaking the power of cancelled sin. God makes our conscience clear because He makes us see that what He has done for us has been done in us and will be brought to its completion when the Lord returns to take us home at last. Our conscience is kept clear through a life of utter dependency upon God, a life of daily repentance and the acceptance of God's forgiveness as fact, not some "legal fiction." It comes from genuine faith. This faith is grounded alone in what...