He Restores My Soul

“The Lord is my shepherd,

I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures;

He leads me beside quiet waters.

He restores my soul;

He guides me in the paths of righteousness

For His name’s sake.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I 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 have anointed my head with oil;

My cup overflows.

Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,

And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” (Psalms 23:1-6 NASB1995)

When we believe in Jesus Christ to be Lord and Savior of our lives, we enter into a union, a spiritual marriage contract, an intimate relationship with him that is like no other. And we give up our “single” lives to become his and his alone. He becomes our spiritual husband, our betrothed, and we Christians become his bride who are waiting for his return when he will take his faithful ones to be with him, when we get to be with our Lord for eternity. 

Our relationship with him is to parallel the relationship of a husband and a wife who love each other and who are committed to one another. Thus, by God-persuaded faith in him we deny self, die daily to sin, by the Spirit, and we now walk in faithful obedience to our Lord in holy living, in the power of God. We no longer live like we are single, doing our own thing. For our lives now belong to him to love and to serve and to obey him, our husband.

Now we follow Jesus Christ with our lives as the sheep follow their shepherd. And we let him lead us in the way that we ought to go. And he guides us in the paths of righteousness and holiness and godly living, and not according to the sinful patterns of the world we live in. He shows us the right way, and so we follow him in surrender to his will and in obedience to his commands. We may not do this perfectly all the time, but we must follow his lead.

Now, as his followers, if we are truly following him in walks of obedience and in surrender to his will, and we have put our lives of sin behind us, Satan, who is our enemy, is going to try to get us back on his side. He is going to try to trip us up, and he will lie to us, and he will try to convince us that God did not say that we must obey him and that we must die with him to sin. But we must rebuke his lies with the truth of God’s word taught in context.

And if Satan cannot get us to go his way, and to follow his lies, then he will find other ways in which to “take us out,” for his goal is to get us back on his side and away from following Jesus Christ with our lives. So if we refuse him, and we obey our Lord, then he will fight against us, and he will persecute us, and he will afflict us and send other people to hate, reject, mistreat, and persecute us, and even to falsely accuse us of what we did not do.

But through all of that our Lord will be with us if we are with him, and if we are following him and not the ways of this sinful world. And he will give us the strength and the wisdom that we need to combat the lies of the enemy, and to stand strong on the truth of God’s word, even if it means losing a lot of friends, and friends and family turning against us because of our seriousness of walks of faith and obedience to our Lord and to his will.

So, we have no reason to fear the enemy and what he/they may do to us. For no matter what comes our way, we can be strong in the Lord and in his strength when we daily put on the armor of God which he supplied for us to live the Christian life and to not give way to the enemy (Ephesians 6:10-20). So we need not to fear any evil, for our Lord is with us, and his hands will guide us each step of the way, if we yield control of our lives over to him.

But, if we profess faith in Jesus Christ, yet we continue to live like we are “single” and not married to him, and so we continue in sin, and not in walks of obedience to our Lord (Owner-Master Husband), then we don’t have these promises nor these protections from the enemy. We are on our own if we do not surrender our lives to the Lord Jesus to do his will. And salvation from sin and eternal life with God are not ours to claim if we refuse him.

[Matt 7:13-14,21-23; Lu 9:23-26; Jn 10:27-30; Ac 26:18; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; Rom 12:1-2; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Co 10:1-22; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Gal 5:16-24; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:1-17; Tit 2:11-14; Heb 3:1-19; Heb 4:1-13; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2; 1 Pet 2:24; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6,15-17; 1 Jn 3:4-10]

Full Release  

An Original Work / April 15, 2012

Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

Walking daily with my Savior 

brings me joy.

Loving Father; precious Jesus; 

He’s my Savior and my Lord.

Gently leads me; follow Him.

I’ve invited Him within.

Now abiding in His presence, 

oh, what peace.

From my self-life 

He has brought me,

By His mercy, full release.

Hope and comfort, 

peace and safety Jesus brings

When I daily bow before Him;

Obey freely; do His will.

Follow Him where’er He leads.

Listen to Him; His words heed.

Now obeying his words fully, 

oh, what love

That He gives me 

through salvation,

By His Spirit, from above. 

Loving Father; precious Jesus, 

He’s my friend.

With my Savior, by His Spirit, 

I will endure to the end.

Share the gospel, tell what’s true.

Witness daily; His will do.

Tell the world of how their Savior 

bled and died.

On a cruel cross He suffered 

So that we might be alive. 

https://vimeo.com/115169203 

He Restores My Soul

An Original Work / February 27, 2025 

Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love