The Lifestyle Of The Kingdom
THE SHEPHERD’S PSALM
Ps 23:1-6 NKJV
The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters.
He restores my soul;
He leads 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 You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil;
My cup overflows,
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the Lord Forever.
This is probably the most popular Psalm in the Bible, the Christians know it, and even the wicked know it. The author David was a shepherd before he was a king, so he understood what it was to be a shepherd and how to look after the sheep. The Bible teaches us that The Good Shepherd will give His life for the sheep.
David now, by referring to God as his Shepherd likened himself to a sheep, that’s why he said “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want”. He first established his source; it is very important in life that we must always know who is our source. Your source is where your resources come from.
Resource means a useful or valuable possession of a country, or a person; something that can be used to help you; it is what you already have. The difference between the source and the resource is this: the Source is not subject to change, but the resources are.
Often, resources are seasonal, that’s why they are subject to change. But if you are established that God is your Source, then you know He will never change.
Many times, our faith is in the resource, it is where we base most of our decisions.
When you begin to put the resources ahead of the source, you will find that most of the time, you will struggle.
Many times, we get so hung up on the things, that the things becomes your god. Our lives did not begin with a thing, our lives began with a Person, and that Person is God. There is one thing we need to learn in this life – “There Are No Uncertainties With God!”
If there was any uncertainty in God, then we could not trust Him and we could not rely on Him. We can trust God, because unlike things, God doesn’t change – today and forever He remains the same. Many of us, before this time, we had nothing…who did you trust then?
Then suddenly we had something!
The problem is, now that we have something, we trust the thing more than we trust God. I want you to check your life – if God is your Source, then He should be your first and greatest priority. Or are the things your priority?
Priority means you put them first – so which do you put first?
If God is not your priority, it is because you don’t know who God is; you don’t know what He has, what He can do and what He can give to you.
John 1:3
Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
God is the God of all things – if things were bad, God would not have created them, the things in this world are not evil because God created them!
God created gold, silver, diamonds, and so on…God had put the wealth on the earth, if these things were evil He would have said so, or He would not have made them in the first place.
If God is the source of our lives, He can give us anything and everything He has made. But you need to understand, God wants us to have Him first before we can have the things.
God wants us to keep it in that order – God first, not family first. If you keep it in that order, you will never run out of things.
PsAlm 23:1
The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.
David did not say “I shall not need”, because need was not in his mind. He knows that God is bigger than his needs. David understood that he cannot talk about God and call Him God yet limit Him only to his needs, it should be the same with us.
In religion, we were taught that God will meet all our needs, and that’s why all that the people want is for God to meet their needs. Religion taught that it is greediness and covetousness to ask for so much. The people don’t understand the Psalm, they don’t know the heart of God.
Q:
How big do you think our God is? Is He not capable of giving what we want? Can He only accommodate what we need?
The 10th commandment says “Thou shalt not covet…” this is Desire Versus Greed.
One can condemn greed and envy without prohibiting a healthy desire for relationships and things. The Psalm is saying, it’s alright for you, for me, to want – what do you want?
It is never God’s will that the corrupt and the crooked have what they want, while you, the righteous children of God are only getting by with what you need.
God wants us to go over and beyond our needs. Until you want it, God cannot give it to you, but without the greed, the lust which is an insatiable desire, and the covetousness.
Greed is an intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food. It is control and the things someone would do to keep it.
Greed is always there to serve only the personal desire of individuals or groups.
Greed is not because of fear or insecurity. It is because of excessive selfishness, which is the result of ignorance, lack of wisdom, lack of kindness and lack of love.
Fear, insecurity, anxiety, tendency to betray or harm others, overconfidence, arrogance – these are the results of greed.
What about covetousness?
To covet is to stretch oneself to reach after a thing that the other person has.
It’s wanting to have more, a bigger piece, an advantage, superiority, control.
It’s having plans and thoughts to defraud and extort.
It is an insatiable desire (impossible to satisfy) to possess.
David said: “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want”;
Q:
What do you want?
If you have a small mind with a very small imagination, you will find yourself criticizing people with great dreams – that’s because reason has bound your imagination.
Faith sees through your imagination, that’s why your imagination has to be sanctified, otherwise it will only trigger reason – reason hinders faith.
Reason and faith can never go together – but imagination and faith, they are the perfect combination to get to where God wants us to be – to see the vision!
Imaginations form a pattern of thinking and develop a whole mindset toward life; They determine our creativity, emotions, self-discipline, ability to solve problems and how we handle the choices we make.
Gen 13:1-2
So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, with his wife and everything he had, and Lot went with him. Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold.
Based on modern estimates, the wealth of Abraham then was about US$40M – big deal, Henry Sy was richer than him.
But don’t forget that God also gave Abraham land. The lands were all Arab lands which means they have oil – he never got to use them, that would have amounted to hundreds of trillions of dollars. He is the father of faith – if daddy is that rich…then!!!???
The world wants what God has created, but the righteous don’t because religion says “have only what you need!”
That’s why the wicked have wealth!
Deut 8:18
“But remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.”
When did God put all the gold, silver, and the diamonds in the earth?
He placed it there before He created you – that means He created them for us!
You cannot take it because despite the greatness and “unlimitlessness” of God, all you want is…your need.
Take away your limits of God – there is no limit to God, and when He created us, He put no limits on us. The only limit you have is the limit you put to God and to yourself. Until you can think and believe in the dimension of your imagination, you are poor, you are practicing poverty.
Is God big? Then don’t limit Him!
Eph 3:20-21
Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly more than all we can ask or imagine, according to the power that works in us, 21 to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever, Amen.
Ps 23:2
He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters.
In the Prophetic language, green is the color that represents wealth, it is the color of blessing.
“He makes me to lie down…” God is saying to you, rest in His blessings, that even while resting, you can have increase. We need to understand this law – you don’t work for money, money works for you, you are going to rest while the money is multiplying. The curse said “by the sweat of thy brows, you shall eat”, there is no sweat when you are resting. The still waters are God’s peace!
There would truly be peace because you know your Source will supply not only your needs but even your wants.
V3 “He restores my soul”, in modern words, He is restoring you to His original intent – poverty and lack is not part of His original intent. He is taking us out of the curse.
V3b “He leads me beside the still waters”, follow God, obey God for He is leading you into righteousness!
Psalm 97:2
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne.
V4 “Though I walk…”, FEAR NOT, 365 times these words were mentioned in the Bible, 1 for each day…
Isa 54:17
“No weapon formed against you shall prosper…”
V5 “He prepares…”, there are people who are just watching and waiting for you to fall down and out.
But God will let your enemies see your blessings and prosperity. This is the end game – you are the head.
Ps 34:9-10
Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints! There is no want to those who fear Him. The young lions lack and suffer hunger; But those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing.
Because the Lord is our Shepherd, let me show you “INFINITY”
Luke 5:4-6 NKJV
When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” But Simon answered and said to Him, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net.”
God was talking infinity, nets, but they limited God when they let down only a net. God always want you to have more than you could ever have, dream, or imagine! Eph 3:20
Infinity: John:6 the feeding of the 5000 – 5 loaves and 2 fish, yet 12 baskets were the excess!
Infinity: John 2 the wedding at Cana…
Infinity: 40 years in the desert…
Infinity: the river followed them in the desert, that river was Jesus!
Infinity: the burning bush…
Jesus our Good Shepherd is our infinity!
This is the greatest trick of the devil and has become a poor man’s habit:
They always say ‘that’s my last one’…
It’s only your last one if you don’t sow it. But if you sow it, it dies, then God brings life into it again. He makes your hundreds thousands, your thousands to hundred thousands, to millions.
Matt 6:11
Give us today our daily bread.
We should not fear even if that’s the last one, because all you need to do is ask – give us this day our daily wealth Deut 8:18, my multiplication, my blessing – more than you could ever hope or imagine.
How do you know if you have a breakthrough in infinity?
When you no longer see numbers and figures…you know why?
Because infinity is not a number or a figure;
INFINITY is a PERSON!
When you no longer see figures, there is nothing you cannot afford,
because it is the figures that turn you off.
God is bigger than the figures!
Your wants are tied to infinity, your needs are not!
God has not put a budget in your life – so there is no limit!
Our needs have numbers…
But our wants don’t!
There is no limit to INFINITY!
The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.
its alright for you to want!
Turn your expectations on this 2020!
2020 is a perfect vision – can you see it? Do you want it?
That’s my house, my car, my business, because the Lord is my Shepherd!
The Lord will say to you: