Psalm 23

Psalm 23

1The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

3He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

4Yea, 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.

5Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

6Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

This week I was repeatedly shown a message about our building our own personal and intimate relationship with Him.

When Moses came back from His encounter with God he was a changed man. The time we spend with Him effects everything about that relationship. The time we spend in direct fellowship with Him is not only important it is critical to our being.

As we reflect on the Biblical account of Martha and Mary. We see that Mary was at the feet of the Lord. Yet Martha “the traditionalist” was busy in the kitchen but most importantly was that she was outside her fellowship and that she was away from Him. At some point in her frustration she went to the Lord and even asked Him to tell Martha or rebuke her own sister and for Jesus to send her to the kitchen to help her. Yet Jesus instead of doing so He taught both of them a valuable lesson and rebuked Martha as He informed her that Mary had indeed made the right choice

This more than likely must have perplexed Martha and she was more than likely may have even been confused. Yet as Christ shed light on real priorities she must have seen that hers at the time were wrong! We as Christians must spend some quality time with Him. During what little time we have remaining here on earth we essentially are given two mandates. Our first and foremost is that we must spend some quality time in direct fellowship with our Lord. We must establish our true priorities and develop a real and intimate relationship with Him. As we get to know Him we learn from this and ultimately we grow. Just as a flower draws its life from its daily light, water, and nourishment our own relationship with the Lord is nourished through direct fellowship as we continue to grow in His true light. As we continue our daily walk we too grow and so we continue to grow in Him we also benefit from this important very personal fellowship. As we learn prioritize our busy schedules we begin to show others as our own intimate and personal relationship becomes evident as well as encouraging to others.

Christianity is in no way just another joy ride. We don't just try it out and see if we will ever fit in. This is an eternal journey which we as Christians must begin. Our faith and our walk is not and can not ever be compared to our buddies from the old neighborhood. Just like a romantic courtship we must work on our relationship each day. When we still in our first year of marriage young and in love we were dependent or center focused on our intimate relationship and not at all our so any of our physical needs. I couldn't wait to be home and spend some very personal time with her. Even though we had little money and often not even a whole lot of quality of much substance by the worlds standard. Because of our love for each other everything else had been placed behind in priority.

This is the same standard which we must seek with Him. There are only two ways we can do this. For one, we must stay in that Book, the other is simply through prayer. The enemy can only achieve any success through trying to ruin our quality time with the Lord. In doing so he succeeds as he tries to kill our testimony or our witness. If we loose our God given armor which is the Word; the wolves will devour us. The standard for frequency of our prayers is easy and simple to remember; brethren its “all the time, without cease...”