Praise God for being at the center of a life that can overflow with all that is good, even when life itself may not be so good.
Ok now for the last verse…Psalm 23:6
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Ps 23:6 ESV
Here’s a nice vision: if we are following the Good Shepherd, then goodness and mercy will follow us every day of our lives too! If that’s not a reason to rejoice today, I don’t know what is! We will sense His Goodness with us in those times when we follow closely behind Jesus. And when we might fall behind a bit, mercy is there to help us catch up to Him. We need both God’s Goodness so we can follow Him, and His Mercy for those times when we don’t. This is what sheep do, they get themselves into messes and need goodness and mercy…have I mentioned that sheep are dumb?! I mean we believers know we should follow Jesus, but sometimes we get sidetracked by our own agendas, right? That’s what mercy is all about. Instead of punishing us for our failings, our Good God understands and forgives us instead.
Now this never means He condones our bad behavior! Sin is never alright…if you are not sure, look upon the Bloody Cross! God does however understand we are going to mess up, and probably mess up a lot. While we should be dead to sin and its effects, sin is not yet dead in this world. The enemy does his worst to keep making us forget we have already been set free, and so the shackles of sin seem to still imprison us. But this is just one of his many lies. Goodness and mercy follow us every day, no matter what we did or did not do. Let’s hold on to these two precious gifts and continue to follow the One Who gave, and continues to give, them to us.
Join me in memorizing 52 verses this year:
January: 1- Jn 3:16; 2- 2Co 5:17; 3- Jas 2:26; 4- Eph 2:10
February: 5- Jn 10:10; 6- Ro 6:23; 7- Rev 21:4; 8- Php 4:13
March: 9- 1Pe 5:7; 10- Jn 8:32; 11- Dt 30:19; 12- Jn 3:30; 13- 2Chron 20:3
April: 14- 2Chron 20:12; 15- 2Chron 20:15b; 16- 2Chron 20:17
May: 17- Ro 8:28; 18- 1Co 13:13; 19- Php 2:12; 20- Mt 5:4
June: 21- Lk 23:42; 22- Jas 4:7; 23- Pr 22:6; 24- Mt 5:3; 25- Jn 14:6
July: 26- Jas 2:19; 27- Dt 31:8; 28- Jn 14:15; 29- Jn 8:11
August: 30- Ro 8:1; 31- Pr 4:23; 32- Pr 18:21; 33- Ps 118:24; 34- 1Jn 4:4
35- Mt 16:24
36- Isa 53:6
37- Ps 23:1-6
<>< Peace, Diane
