Think on heaven. [ Hebrews 11 v 8 - 16 ]

And I dwell in the house of Lord for ever. [Psalm 23v 6 ] These words can be taken in the following way ,[ W Plummer writes, this]./ It is the desire, expectation, and determination of Gods people to seek their happiness in the service of God here, and they hope to enjoy His love, without enemy or interruption, for length of days, even forever in heaven hereafter./ For the saint of God heaven is their final destination, it is not that, an earthly exsistance is not important, but it is not the all important thing. The saint of God must live in the light of eternity, an old saint of God said when you are faced with temptation,look up into the sky and think of heaven. Yes we need to, as in we read Colossians 3 v 2 to / think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth [ NLT ]. Let us remember that all the glories of this world are temporal, the only lasting meaningful glory is the glory of heaven. It is only, what is done for Christ will last, we will think more on this next time.

A prayer...Dear God help us to realize that while life here is important, yet it must be lived out in the light of a greater reality, heaven,in Jesus name we ask this Amen

All will be well.[ Philippians 4 v 19 ]

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life .[Psalm 23 v 6 ]There was an old Chinese philosopher who rode a donkey sitting on it backwards, he may not have seen where he was going, but he could see where he had come from. David made his statement because he looked back ,and as he did he could see how God had undertaken for him. In another Psalm 37 v 25, an older David makes this statement as he looks back,/ I have been young , and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread./ So as David looks back he is absolutley confident that all will be well, God does change, what He did in the past,he will do in the present,and indeed in the future. In the case of Elijah when one source dries up ,God will provide another [ cp 1 Kings 17 v 7 - 9 ] Let us not limit the Holy one of Israel, the God who cannot lie will prove faithful ,if we are a child of God , like David we can say,/ Surely goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives./
Fear Him, ye saints, and you will then
have nothing else to fear,
make you His service your delight,
He,ll make your wants His care.
[Nahum Tate ]
A prayer..../Dear Lord we confess that we look at our needs instead of You who will meet our
needs,help us to rest on Your faithfulness, forgive us,help us to hear Your still
small voice, saying ,trust Me,in Your name we ask this Amen.

Annointing. [ John 15 v 5 ]

Thou annointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over [ Psalm 23 v 5 ] Annointing was a common practice ,our Saviour mentions it [ Luke 7 v 46 ] after he had been annointed with ointment.Now David was annointed by Samuel [ 1 Samuel 16 v 13 ], and immediately the Spirit of God came upon him, in verse 14 we read how the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul. I believe the annointing indicated Gods favour ,which now rested on David, and was no longer on Saul,this divine favour would rest upon David all his life, David acknowledges this, that all his success, all his victories came from Gods good favour .Likewise Davids greater son Jesus declared that ,the Spirit of the Lord was upon Him, because He was annointed for a special mission [ Luke 4v 18 ]. With that annointing Gods favour and power , would be upon Him,and that equipped Jesus to accomplish that which would bless the whole world. W Pummer wrote , / The annointing clearly points to the effusion of the Holy Ghost,let us learn the neccessity of knowing Gods annointing in all our endevours, if we fail to know the annointing, then our preaching and service will be but a dry husk,that will have no effect on those we seek to minister to. Thomas T. Lynch wrote. Mighty Spirit, dwell with me, I myself would holy be. Mighty so as to prevail. Where unaided man must fail, Ever by a mighty hope. Pressing on and bearing up.
A prayer.....Dear God we have so much to learn in our relationship with You,the need to live and serve, not in our own power,but in the power of Your Spirit, Amen

God can. [ Psalm 66 ]

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies, [Psalm23 v 5 ]Yes this charismatic person had enemies, king Saul ,and those who sided with him. Saul knew his days as king were numbered[ 1 Samuel 13v 14/ 15 v26] and when David rose to prominence, Saul became Davids enemy[ 1 Samuel 18 v 7 - 9 ]. Yet inspite of Sauls attempts to kill him ,David prospered,and when he lived among the Philistines [1 Samuel 27 ] the Lord watched over him and blessed him and preserved him. No opponents could hinder God, blessing His servant David,and indeed all of Gods servants, Joseph ,for were not his brothers c p Genesis 43 v33, and godly Job ,for was not satan his enemy cp 42 v12- 16. The word of God tells us, if God be for us ,who can be against us [Romans 8 v 31],yes He can prepare for us a table in the presence of our enemies.
A prayer......./ Dear God we rejoice that inspite of enemies and difficulties , You have provided
for all our needs,we praise and thank You in Jesus name Amen/

The comforter. [ John 10 v 18 ]

Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. [Psalm 23 v 5 ] I am never to sure what these were, Bonar in his commentary wrote,that they were for defence,also for beating bushes when the sheep went astray, and for killing serpents, and the like.Whatever they were, they brought comfort to the sheep, who were easily frightened, lions and bears threatened the sheep[1 Samuel 17 v 34 ]. The Bible continually compares Gods people to sheep [CP.Isaiah 53 / Ezekiel 34 / Matthew25 / John 10] ,and like sheep we face dangers, from Gods arch enemy , the Devil, now of course he cannot attack God, but he most certainly will attack Gods childrens.[ 1 Peter 5 v 8 ] Before our Saviour left His disciples , He said ,I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you [John 14 v18 ], and of course He did in the Person of the Holy Spirit , the comforter[ John 14 v26 ].It is William Barclay who wrote the following,/ Nowadays the word comfort has to do almost solely with sorrow....Beyond a shadow of doubt the Holy Spirit does that,but to limit His work to that,is sadly to belittle Him. We have a modern phrase which we often use. We talk of being able to cope. That is precisely the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes to us, and takes away our inadequacies and enables us to cope with life. The Holy Spirit substitutes victorious for defeated living/,now little flock is this not a comfort to you?.
A prayer......./ Dear Lord we thank You that we have not been left to cope on our own, help us
to rely upon the Comforter at all times, in Your name we ask this Amen./

Make sure He is with you.[ 1 Thessalonians 1 v10 ]

Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me/ Psalm 23 v4/ Yesterday we thought on death, the why of death, sin, ,the rich man, the poor man, death is the great leveller, we may cry out it is not fair I dont deserve to die.It interrupts all our plans, it comes uninvited, nothing we do can shut it out,we cant bribe it to stay away, tears are of no avail,it has pity on no one, the most beautiful and the most ugly die. Yet this is not the end of the story, for we are told in the Bible ,but after this the Judgment [Hebrews 9v 27 ],many say when you are dead your dead, and thats all there is to it, not so. Now consider that the apostle John was the apostle of love, read his writings,in 1st John 4, he mentions love 27 times, love permeates his writings.Yet it is in one of the best know verses in his writings,we read [ John 3 v16 ] For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son ,yes here is John emphasizes again the love of God, but John does not stop there, for humanity is meant to respond to this love, so it follows,that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.For many it is inconceivable that anybody should perish,but love does not nulify judgement, rather it provides a way to escape judgment ,that is by putting ones faith in Jesus. This is why David could say , I will fear no evil, for Thou[ Jesus the good Shepherd] art with him. While taking a funeral recently I said, make sure you do not go into eternity alone,make sure that He the good Shepherd is with You.
A prayer......./Dear Lord we thank You that when we come to face the valley of the shadow
of death we need fear no evil if You are with us. Amen/

Death [Romans 5 v 12 ]

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. Psalm 23v 4. The word of God tells us that it is appointed unto men once to die Hebrews 9 v27 ], now everybody knows this, and of course most of us want to live as long as possible.It is said that this generation, are into denial in the matter of death, they rarely speak of it, or think of it. The Psalmist speaks of not being afraid of death, are you afraid of death?,someone wrote,/ The sum of all fears is the fear of death- the final loss of control/.David who wrote this Psalm faced death many times, yet he says he did not fear it, most of us will only face it only once.Some people welcome death as a friend, but is it?, the Bible says it is an enemy[ 1 Corinthians 15 v 26 ].God did not create us to die, but something terrible happened, we sinned, we disobeyed God [Genesis 3],and so an unwanted word ,and an unwanted experience came into being, death [ Romans 5 v12 ]. So sin is the cause of death,it is the penalty which effects everyone, men , women and children,humanty will never beat it,they may delay it,but thats all.
A prayer..../ Dear God help us see death for what it is, an enemy, and one we all have to face,
in Jesus name Amen./