A Heart For Jesus

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about “the joy of the Lord is your strength”. (See Nehemiah 8:10). In fact I find myself singing it in my head often! (Yes, it is a song by Rend Collective:)But what does that mean? What does that look like in my day to day living? How can His joy be my strength?  I think of people like Elisabeth Elliot and Corrie Ten Boom. Their lives were full of loss; pain; trials and struggles, yet their joy was in the Lord. Their hope was in Him not their circumstances.  Psalm‬ ‭59‬:‭16‬ ‭(ESV‬‬) says, “But I will sing of your strength; I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning. For you have been to me a fortress and a refuge in the day of my distress.” When David wrote this Psalm, he was being pursued by Saul as well as friends of Saul, they were watching his every move so they could kill him. Saul was very jealous of David, I think because after he had disobeyed God, God chose David over him to be the next King of Israel, and because he...

“And you are my sheep, human sheep of my pasture, and I am your God, declares the Lord God.”” Ezekiel 34:31 ”The Lord is my Shepherd”(Psalm 23), such a comforting thought don’t you think? Because, as a sheep, we are prone to wander, go our own way, choose our own path and sometimes end up in situations where we definitely need a shepherd’s help!  There are several places in Scripture where God is called a shepherd. In Genesis 49:24, “…from there is the Shepherd, the stone of Israel.” Jesus is known as the “cornerstone”, our sure foundation; In Isaiah 40:10, “He will tend His flock like a Shepherd…”; Jeremiah 31:10 says, “…and will keep him as a Shepherd keeps His flock”. Psalm 121:5 reminds us that God is our keeper, “The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand.” But unlike human “keepers”, our God never slumbers or sleeps. He is our shade. As Psalm 91:1 says, “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.” He promise...