The Doxology, Psalms 8:1; I’ll add 31:1-4.

My Shepherd met me in His green pastures, and we visited in Psalm 119, MEM, verses 97-104; Isaiah 66:1-5, and Romans 11:26-12:2. I ended up in Revelation 2.

After reading and pondering these passages, I walked with my Shepherd along the still waters to reflect.

Psalms 119:97-104, David testified that constant meditation in God’s word (see Hebrews 5:14) made him wiser than his enemies (v. 98), greater in understanding than his teachers and the ancients (v. 99-100), and by its guidance he was protected from the “evil way” (v. 101-104).

In Isaiah 66:1-5, God describes the man He looks to. The word look translates a Hebrew expression meaning “to regard with pleasure, favor, or care … [to] regard, have respect, [to] see” (Strong’s 5027). 

Our Father “resists the proud” but gives “grace to the lowly” (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5). The man to whom God looks is the humble man (called “poor,” whether or not poor in wealth), who is contrite (smitten, maimed, dejected) in spirit, and so poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3), who “trembleth at my word” (Isaiah 66:2, 5; see examples in Daniel (Daniel 10:11) and Josiah (2 Kings 22:11-20).*

Romans 11:26-12:2, where it occurred to me that the Spirit’s strong pleading for us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, being transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:1-2), is because of the “depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God,” His “unsearchabe … judgments” and “his ways past finding out” (Romans 11:33), so that “all things” are “for him, and through him, and to him,” Him being Christ Jesus. And this is illustrated by His glorious and mysterious plan by which He devised “means, that his banished be not expelled from him” (2 Samuel 14:14; Romans 5:8-9)—glory to GOD, we who were once no people (1 Peter 2:10), are made nigh to Him by the blood of Christ (Ephesians 2:13), and this was done through the turning of His favor toward “those which were not a people” to “provoke [Israel] to anger with a foolish nation” (Deuteronomy 32:21). Wow! The Word Who was God became flesh to come to “seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10; John 1:1, 14).

In the valley shadowed by His Cross, I knelt before Him Who presented His body a sacrifice unto death for me, and I heard the Spirit plead with me, “therefore,” in view of the amazing “mercies of God” (Romans 12:1a), He pleads with me to present this body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God,” as my “reasonable service” (Romans 12:1b).

My Shepherd spoke: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23).

At the table, Jesus anointed my head with His oil and stirred His sufficient grace into my cup till it overflowed. Goodness and mercy attended me as I rose to walk with my Lord into His harvest.

Praying for revival! 🙏

Going live asap:

https://rumble.com/v7bfp1k-shepherds-pasture.html

[*God looked to Josiah when he trembled at the words of the Law and received God’s favor, which turned to a blessing for his entire nation.]