Heart Tracks - The Lord Is.....

        I've been thinking on the first verse of the 23rd Psalm.  "The Lord is my Shepherd, I have everything I need."  It's led me to contemplate on all the names the Lord has given us for Himself, each depicting another limitless truth of who He is.  It leads me into knowing that in whatever name He reveals Himself to me, I, like David, who wrote the Psalm, have everything I need.  Because of this I can simply live in the security and reality of knowing that "The Lord is," and because He is, "I have everything I need."

     I recently read the account of a missionary who said that she has been dwelling upon the truth of the Lord being her anchor, citing Hebrews 6:18-19, "We hold to the hope that lies before us.  This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls."  She goes on to give the illustration of an ocean buoy.  This buoy is held in place by an anchor that goes deep into the ocean depths, yet this anchor does not prevent the buoy from being tossed in many different directions by the wind and waves around it.  Yet, despite these winds and waves, the buoy remains in place, immovable.  So too are our lives and souls when we are anchored in the life and reality of Christ.  In fact it is the very winds and waves of life that serve to carry us into ever deeper revelations of Himself, of learning who He is.  In the buffeting of the winds and waves, we learn that He is our Source and Provider.  Our Strong Tower.  Our Deliverer.  Our Almighty God.  Our Healer.  Our Sovereign Lord, the One in Whom all things hold together.  These are just a few of the deep truths and understanding that we enter into as we come to know Him as who He is, and not just about Him according to what we've been told.  

     This is wonderful and beautiful truth, but it is the last part of Hebrews 6:18-19 that really speaks to my heart.  The writer says that our experiencing the total sufficiency of our Anchor, "Leads us through the curtain into God's inner sanctuary."  His Jewish readers would have understood this as a reference to Old Testament worship, where the presence of the Father was found in the inner sanctuary, the Holy of Holies.  Only the High Priest could enter there.  Now, in and through Christ, access is provided to all who would come to Him.  All of us, through our knowledge and experience of Him are brought into the wonder and glory of His Presence, yet sadly, so few of us ever really enter in.  We're content to remain in the outer court, hearing about who He is, but never really experiencing Him for ourselves.  We can recite His names, but we can not describe what it is like to know Him in the power of those names.
     David could say "The Lord is my Shepherd," and know that it was so.  The Father had revealed Himself as such time and again in His life.  He knew Him in that Name, and so many others as well.  Because of that, He also knew that He had everything He needed.  God, in every aspect of His personality would provide for Him in every aspect of David's life.  The winds and the waves would come, and his life might be tossed about, but he knew who His Anchor was, and who He would continue to be for Him.  So, he had everything he needed.  What of you and I?  Do we know, in the face of all things, that the Lord is....all we really need?  Is that enough?

Blessings,
Pastor O