The LORD is my sheperd.
This is the guiding principle of my life. But concerning Psalm 23:2 I must disagree, simply because it's not always like that. Otherwise the verse Ps 23:4 gives me strenght to pass through the rough times of my life without fear and complains. P.S. Sorry for my English cause it is not my mother tongue.
While I was in death bed in a hospital at the emergency ward,I remembered the full verses of Psalm 23,which my dear mother insisted me to be memoriszed(when I was about seven years old).Amid the life's fleeting moments,with full pain , half conscious,and no body to turn to, I recited this Psalm several times.It really soothed my soul,calmed my agony,and made me feel like I am in the safe embracing hands of God.Miraculously,I was out of the hospital,and from that time onwards, Psalm 23 is a powerful"Mantra"for me in times of distress. I recommed this to any body-even an atheist or follower of any other religion to try this sacred chant of Psalm 23..You will see the power of this devine 'mantra'-Pslam 23.
I love this psalms Jesus will always be with u intill the end of time and if you except Jesus as lord and savior you will have eternal life and live and serve him forever.
What a great time for this verse to reassure myself, im about to start major exam in 1 hour, feeling the pressure already, after reading this verse i thank God for His Divine Intervention.
Im from Fiji by the way.
I have been meditating on Psalms 23, verse by verse.
This is a blessed and powerful way to understand how muchwe as humans are compassioniately cared for by our heavenly father through his only begotten son Jesus Christ.
This is also God giving his divine protection to mankind.
I was truly touched while reading comments on the 23rd Psalms ,talking about promotion im up for one and I have to examine myself ,But I trust God,thank you all for your comments it helped me.Amen
The lord is my shepherd,I have not want,I will not want, I cannot want That say all God is to me. this is my favorite psalm even in the valley of death the Lord would with me
Hi Everyone... I just wanted to drop a quick note to say that this chapter of the Psalms as to every other has been a great influence in my life and I have no one but my late mother to thank for that. It's like my devotional, it's like my prayer point, it says everything in just a few words. I bless the day she made reference to this verse of the Psalms to me and may God be with her wherever she is. Thank you lord for the gift of life and I bless your word and your holy name. Amen!
im reading over the comments and i find them very interesting. ive seen it in films but i just read it myself tonight and from what i saw and pictured in my head is a bit different. i didnt see the rod and staff as a metaphorical thing, i see it as an actual rod and staff that you carry with you on a long and hard journey, like hikeing through the bush with a solid stick or branch, to help you along, feel for holes and other dangers that might surround you, it compforts you and helps you to feel more relaxed.
the great thing about reading your comments is it helped me to understand, as rediculous as it may sound i always thought you had to be dieing in order to say this prayer or faceing your demons, i didnt think of it "the valley" as a problem that you may have in your life, this brings compfort.thank you
This is for everyone including me. The words of God are new everytime. Still dwelling in this powerful 4th verse of chapter 23 in the book of psalms, "eventhough I pass through the valley of death, I shall fear no evil for thou art with me"...it is good to know how we deal with issues.
God has always been with us and even if it seems we do not see Him in the time of our problems, we should not put blame on God for whatever happens. My question is how do we approach our problems? Do we look for someone to blame or we blame God?
You see, there are things that God does not expect from us to do whenever we find ourselves in problems. Please remember that valley is below normal ground level. So, it can be depitced as a problem. We all want to get out of it as quick as we can. God did not put us there,but somehow, we find ourselves in it. I am not ready to dig deep into how we find ourselves in problems, but it is always good to correct some things regarding how we approach problems whenever we find ourselves in it. Now, back to what I was saying, God does not want us to mummur to Him whenever we find ourselves in problem. God does not want us to blame Him. He does not want us to blame others. He does not want us to querry Him. He trully dislike confronting Him while in problem.
So, what does God want us to do? Crying?, rolling on the ground or what? God is a good listening father. A good shepered. He listens to our questioning, I would say complaints and clearifications. God wants us to develop effctive communication with Him so that as we speak to God in prayer and in songs, He can speak to us back. Hey, does God speaks? Oh yeah! He does. He speaks to us while we pray, study His words, sing to Him, listen to words of God in the Church, Christian fellowship, gospel messages among many others. He can send people to you to confirm what He has already told you, He can choose to speak to you in the dream by the means of what is relevant to your understanding. For an example, God can speak to a farmer through plants and seeds. He can speak to Doctor through medication e.t.c. God can choose to speak in any way He likes. So, there is not limitation to His ways. Please, let us learn to k"now His ways, not just His acts".So, when God is speaking to us, let us believe He is speaking to us.
All these come from communicating God first. God will always come to help, but our way to approach this problem make us prove to God whether we are due for promition or not.
Whenever we pass through the valley of shadow of death. We should remember that we are just passing through it. We are not staying there. So, we should invlove God who has been our shepered from the prior verses up to verse 4.
"He will come and save". So, we should not make God angry at us or prolong our breakthrough by blaming God or blaming others. We should accept our responsibility to get out of this valey through the help of Holy Spirit. Our time in the valley is very short. So, let us involve God in everything. God is our friend.
It is okay for us to scream, shout,or cry, but not to sin against God. As a parent, if your child shout on you for snacks money, you would not like it. So, let us respect God in our problems. Let us bring everything to Him in prayers and in thanskgiving.
Amen.
The words of God are powerful. Still on verse 4 of Psalm 23, ..."for thou art with me"...It takes a good and a grateful Christain who may be also referred to as a sheep as in this chapter to remember that from verse 1 of this chapter, the Lord has been his shepered. The Lord has been with him since the beginning of his life. Now, this is how it all began. The Lord is your leader, he took you to a better place, he led you to still water which is a peaceful place, he thought you his path of righteousness which is his ways. So, a greateful and an unforgetful christain is expected to know that eventhough when "he passes through the valley" of death, he should NEVER be afraid of such treath because the Lord is with him. How, the Lord wants to see whether you as a christain will be able to implement all his path of righteousness he has thought you or not. Once you do not allow fear in you and you embrace correction which is rod and you hold on to God's staff which is your faith, you have shown the Lord your shepered that you are growing as a result of how he has brought you up as a sheep.God expects every christain to overcome challenges. Things will always come to challenge what you have learnt from God and once you overcome it, you are due for promition. He will set a table before you in the presence of your enemeies. Remember that in the beginning He did not nuture you in the presence of your enemies. He prepared you to be able to withstand it. Once you cross this hurdle as in verse 4, you are due for promotion in the presence of your adversaries and they have no reason to fight you because you have overcome their temptations.
You may want to ask me why God was not there to help Adam and Eve to overcome Satanic temptation? "God will never do for any man what any man has to do for himself". He will always show to any man His goodness, kindness, his righteousness...but YOU need to prove to God that you are growing up as a result of God's sheperedhood over your life. Adam and Eve could not show God this and they remained babylike until they died. No table was prepared for them in the presence of Satan because they were not able to be demonstrate God's tutorings. I pray that the Lord gives you and I the ability through His Holy Spirit to overcome every challenge of life in order to make God promote us by preparing a table for us in the presence of all our emenies.
Amen in Jesus name.
This Psalms chapter 23 is my protection when I go home late in the evening. This chapter strengthens me in times of fear. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. May God bless us always!
hi,i love this chapter and 3 also.i'm reading the commentary,can someone please explain the difference between holy spirit and holy ghost.
thank you.
God bless us all
This verse is very powerful. From my understanding, valley is a place below the normal ground level. This means individual people may be going through different situation that they are the only one that can feel the effect of it. No human being can actually feel other human being's pains or situation. It is a shadow of death because this situation appears to be deadly and threathening. This scripture encourage us not to be afraid of this situation because fear cannot bring us out of this situation. We need to be courageous because God's words are rod to correct our mistakes. Rod is not a pleasant thing to be beaten with yet, it is better to be corrected with rod in order not to make such mistake again. Rod is not meant to kill, but to correct mistake. The rod is the words of God. His words can also be held unto because it is a staff what can keep us going in the race of faith. Without staff, we may be misled and fall on the road. The rod and staff are meant to comfort us and they surely do. The commandments of God are not hard. They are simply "painful, but full of gains". To God be all the glory for His words.
I love this chapter of psalms23,because it give me,strength,protection from my enemy.And it help me to go on and lived my life how he want me to do.Because I know that he will be there right by my beside all the way.Thank so much! love you alway
Psalms23 give protection and that there is nothin to hard for God. He is my shepard and we shall not want. He will be there through the good and the bad.Everything that the enemy try to attempt and throw against you...there is always God blessed assurance that he want leave nor forsake us!
The Lord is my shepred i shall not want Jesus is my leader and i shall follow him, i konw when thing are tough and i don't know what to do my lead me out of it, my cup may run over but that from joy in my heart for the love of my Lord
Although it is true, Jesus lives!, but he died for our sins as Gods pascal lamb, perfect in all ways!, he came to die for our sins and to defeat death, and rose again, his miracle of raising Lazarus, was a prelude to his own death and resurection!, God knew that would be the only way for us to be rid of our sins, and have a relationship with him, that is what Jesus was referring to when He said "It is, finished", sin died with him on the cross, then he said "Father, into your hands , I commend my spirit! the the veil in the temple was torn in two, as the earth quaked beneath him!.
23:6;"......and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever." This is in reference to te Shepherd culture, in Davids time the best and perfect lamb was taken inside of the shepherds house, and dwelt there till it was time for it to be sacrificed for the sins of the family, As Christ was Gods perfect lamb, sacrificed for our sins.
This lamb was spot and blemish free, perfect in all ways, and had the best place in the house, it was treated as a family pet, eating everything,but meat, that the family ate, it was beloved by the family and slept with the kids sometimes, and was watched by them as well.
How much clearer was the picture of sacrificing something beloved, to the people in David's time, could this be?, a lot clearer than it is today!
This phrase paints the picture of Christs Sacrifice, as Gods Pass Over lamb for our sins, he was perfect in every way, without spot or blemish,...The Price is paid, It is Finished!, We are forgiven, and justified, sanctified, soon to be glorified!
Back to the lamb, this sacrifice was done every year.
23:6 ; This means that As Gods sheep that His goodness nand mercy shall follow us like a sheepdog follows behind the flock keeping us in line, and bringing us back when we go astray.
Gods goodness and mercy shall follow us as christians, doing the same, and being noticed for others to see.
This is a small hint of evidence that David may have used sheep dogs in his time,....Gods mercy and goodness keeping us close to the good shepherd, bringing us back to him when we go astray, and keeping us in line.
psalms 23 david was calling out to god knowing that the power lord god had was very grate and no one could stop him with god guiding his foot steps and protecting him from all hert harm and danger
This is the guiding principle of my life. But concerning Psalm 23:2 I must disagree, simply because it's not always like that. Otherwise the verse Ps 23:4 gives me strenght to pass through the rough times of my life without fear and complains. P.S. Sorry for my English cause it is not my mother tongue.
Im from Fiji by the way.
This is a blessed and powerful way to understand how muchwe as humans are compassioniately cared for by our heavenly father through his only begotten son Jesus Christ.
This is also God giving his divine protection to mankind.
the great thing about reading your comments is it helped me to understand, as rediculous as it may sound i always thought you had to be dieing in order to say this prayer or faceing your demons, i didnt think of it "the valley" as a problem that you may have in your life, this brings compfort.thank you
God has always been with us and even if it seems we do not see Him in the time of our problems, we should not put blame on God for whatever happens. My question is how do we approach our problems? Do we look for someone to blame or we blame God?
You see, there are things that God does not expect from us to do whenever we find ourselves in problems. Please remember that valley is below normal ground level. So, it can be depitced as a problem. We all want to get out of it as quick as we can. God did not put us there,but somehow, we find ourselves in it. I am not ready to dig deep into how we find ourselves in problems, but it is always good to correct some things regarding how we approach problems whenever we find ourselves in it. Now, back to what I was saying, God does not want us to mummur to Him whenever we find ourselves in problem. God does not want us to blame Him. He does not want us to blame others. He does not want us to querry Him. He trully dislike confronting Him while in problem.
So, what does God want us to do? Crying?, rolling on the ground or what? God is a good listening father. A good shepered. He listens to our questioning, I would say complaints and clearifications. God wants us to develop effctive communication with Him so that as we speak to God in prayer and in songs, He can speak to us back. Hey, does God speaks? Oh yeah! He does. He speaks to us while we pray, study His words, sing to Him, listen to words of God in the Church, Christian fellowship, gospel messages among many others. He can send people to you to confirm what He has already told you, He can choose to speak to you in the dream by the means of what is relevant to your understanding. For an example, God can speak to a farmer through plants and seeds. He can speak to Doctor through medication e.t.c. God can choose to speak in any way He likes. So, there is not limitation to His ways. Please, let us learn to k"now His ways, not just His acts".So, when God is speaking to us, let us believe He is speaking to us.
All these come from communicating God first. God will always come to help, but our way to approach this problem make us prove to God whether we are due for promition or not.
Whenever we pass through the valley of shadow of death. We should remember that we are just passing through it. We are not staying there. So, we should invlove God who has been our shepered from the prior verses up to verse 4.
"He will come and save". So, we should not make God angry at us or prolong our breakthrough by blaming God or blaming others. We should accept our responsibility to get out of this valey through the help of Holy Spirit. Our time in the valley is very short. So, let us involve God in everything. God is our friend.
It is okay for us to scream, shout,or cry, but not to sin against God. As a parent, if your child shout on you for snacks money, you would not like it. So, let us respect God in our problems. Let us bring everything to Him in prayers and in thanskgiving.
Amen.
You may want to ask me why God was not there to help Adam and Eve to overcome Satanic temptation? "God will never do for any man what any man has to do for himself". He will always show to any man His goodness, kindness, his righteousness...but YOU need to prove to God that you are growing up as a result of God's sheperedhood over your life. Adam and Eve could not show God this and they remained babylike until they died. No table was prepared for them in the presence of Satan because they were not able to be demonstrate God's tutorings. I pray that the Lord gives you and I the ability through His Holy Spirit to overcome every challenge of life in order to make God promote us by preparing a table for us in the presence of all our emenies.
Amen in Jesus name.
thank you.
God bless us all
This lamb was spot and blemish free, perfect in all ways, and had the best place in the house, it was treated as a family pet, eating everything,but meat, that the family ate, it was beloved by the family and slept with the kids sometimes, and was watched by them as well.
How much clearer was the picture of sacrificing something beloved, to the people in David's time, could this be?, a lot clearer than it is today!
This phrase paints the picture of Christs Sacrifice, as Gods Pass Over lamb for our sins, he was perfect in every way, without spot or blemish,...The Price is paid, It is Finished!, We are forgiven, and justified, sanctified, soon to be glorified!
Back to the lamb, this sacrifice was done every year.
Gods goodness and mercy shall follow us as christians, doing the same, and being noticed for others to see.
This is a small hint of evidence that David may have used sheep dogs in his time,....Gods mercy and goodness keeping us close to the good shepherd, bringing us back to him when we go astray, and keeping us in line.