Psalms 8:1 and 31:1-4

My Shepherd met me in His green pastures searching for a place where the Mind of the Spirit would engage the spirit of my mind and draw me into communion. It’s infrequent, but it does sometimes happen that my mind is so distracted by pressing business I just can’t find that level of connection. I decided to bring this forward into the published devotion because I am aware than there are some younger preachers that listen to the Shepherd Pasture and I know we all experience this.

If a mother has an infant that needs a diaper change, she can go on in prayer while attending to that pressing need. Often, that’s what I do; if it’s a routine matter, but it’s demanding immediate attention, I can address it without being distracted from my devotional thoughts for the morning. Typically, these things are easily addressed and I can return to my prayer closet and Bible reading; but sometimes, it’s a matter that requires extensive time and absorbs my attention, so that it is not possible, and this can keep me from my usual hour to two hours (sometimes more) of devotional time with my Shepherd.

Today was one of those, and it was not until later in the morning that I found a break and opened my Bible to feed a while. I asked the LORD to give me something tasty to feed on.

I’ve been reading in Daniel a lot lately, preparing my lesson outlines for the online livestream course I intend to offer. Maybe that’s why when I opened my Bible I found myself in Daniel 4. It was verse 16 that grabbed my attention:

Daniel 4:16 Let his heart be changed from man’s, and let a beast’s heart be given unto him; and let seven times pass over him.

I thought of Daniel’s prophecy of the four beasts, how the first, the lion, with the wings of an eagle, had its wings plucked, whereupon the lion was raised from the earth, and made to stand on its feet “as a man,” and, intriguingly, “a man’s heart” was given to the beast. It’s the reverse of what happened to Nebuchadnezzar.

And I thought about the pastors who become “brutish,” animal like in that they become subordinated to their inflamed fleshly appetites, like bulls, and other cattle (Jeremiah 10:21; Jude 10; whose God is their belly: Romans 16:16; Philippians 3:19).

Along the still waters, I wondered if their condition in some ways parallels Nebuchadnezzar’s.

Pride, which goeth before a fall (Proverbs 16:18; 1 Timothy 3:6), encourages some believers to think more highly of themselves than they ought (Daniel 4:4, 29-31; Romans 12:3), and thusly their spirit gets cut down to a stump in the earth and banded; and so bound to the flesh they become beastly.

And if they are like Nebuchadnezzar in this, perhaps also their remedy would be the same. His condition continued until he acknowledged “the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men” (Daniel 4:25, 35). Only, these arrogant pastors must remember that Jesus Christ is head of His Church, and He giveth to every believer the “measure of faith,” and the Chief Shepherd will bind any pastor presuming to interject himself between the sheep of His pasture and the Good Shepherd of the flock, and leave them banded, without spiritual discernment, until they confess Christ alone is head of His Church.

In the valley, shadowed by His Cross, the Chief Shepherd cried: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23). It’s the only way to be a proper shepherd. We will be accused enough by the likes of Jannes and Jambres, men who resist the truth, corrupt in mind, and reprobate concerning the faith (2 Timothy 3:8).*

At the table, Jesus, the Chief Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, anointed my head with His oil and filled my cup intermingled with His grace. Goodness and mercy stood attentively, and after this morning ritual, they fell in behind me as I went with Jesus into the harvest.

Praying for revival 🙏

Going live asap:

https://rumble.com/v7fk1mw-shepherds-pasture-only-one-man-is-the-head-the-man-christ-jesus.html

[*Jannes and Jambres are not expressly identified in the Old Testament. In Paul’s day, there was an ancient established tradition among the Rabbis that appears in what is called the Damascus Documen, known before the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls. The connection to the Dead Sea scrolls arises from the fact that in those scrolls multiple more ancient copies of the same Damascus Document were found at Qumran in Caves 4, 5, and 6. These date to around the late second or early first century BC. It refers to a Jannes and his brother who withstood Moses. It’s reckoned to have been written about 200 years after the dedication of the Second Temple (the Temple of Zerubbabel, in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah (Ezra 5:2; Nehemiah 12:47; see Zechariah 4:6-10), around 200 years before the birth of Christ. Although we do not find any manuscript evidence that this tradition predated the Second Temple, we do know that these are Egyptian names, and that at least two Egyptian magicians, or sorcerers, stood for Pharaoh against Moses during the prelude to the Exodus (Exodus 1:11-12, 22; 8:7, 18-19; 9:11). We also know there was an uprising against Moses and Aaron in the matter of the golden calves and some say these two Egyptians, who joined the Exodus with the Israelites, stirred up the people against Moses and Aaron, seeking to return the Israelites to Egypt (Exodus 32). However, nothing in this narrative points to any Egyptian stowaways stepping forward to raise this rebellion.

Also, note that the magicians, astrologers, and sorcerers demonstrated limited spiritual power approximating that demonstrated by Moses, only God’s man was vindicated because his power overcame theirs (Exodus 7:11-8:19).]