He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. 

Psalm 23:3 

God gets the glory. Christ, the Good Shepherd, acts toward us in every way to do us good. He provides for all our most basic necessities. He sees to it that we lack for nothing. He gives us food, water, rest, and restores our depleted souls. He leads us along the right path to our desired haven. Why does He do all these things? He does them, ‘for His name’s sake.’ Because God is God with all that entails, He is worthy of all the glory for all He does. The psalmist put it this way, ‘Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but to Your name give glory, because of Your mercy, because of Your truth.’ This includes all the ways in which He deals with us. Our natural inclination is to want some of the credit for our own self-care, preservation, or inclination toward spiritual things. David understood that the reason he could survive and thrive was because Christ was his Shepherd. Apart from Him there is no thriving or surviving. In our most spiritual moments we want God to have the glory He deserves. We want all the saints and angels to worship Him. We want to behold Christ, sitting on the Throne, high and lifted up. We know He is worthy. Therefore when we come to a text that tells us He does what He does, ‘For His name’s sake.’ Our response is, ‘Amen.’ We want Him to have all the glory He deserves both now and forever. 

Our Glorious Living God, 
we rejoice at what You do for Your Name’s sake 
We praise You that for Your Own glory, 
You will lead us to a good end. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.  

Psalm 23:3 

Christ leads us along the right path. Life is a journey. The paths we tread may be rough or smooth; uphill or down; hard or relatively easy. These paths are all going to some destination. Because Christ is the Shepherd He knows the paths, what we will encounter along them, and where they will take us. David, having been a shepherd himself knew that allowing a sheep to choose its own path could end in disaster. It is important for the sheep’s well-being that the shepherd choose the path and, as in the custom in the Middle East, walk before them. This is immensely important for us who look to Christ as our Shepherd. Choosing our own path will bring us to misery, failure, and a disastrous end. Like sheep, we do not have the wisdom to choose the best way. David had confidence in Christ, his Shepherd, to lead him aright. He knew that regardless of what difficulty he encountered along the way, his Shepherd had gone before him and was leading him in the path of righteousness. This is the way that is good and leads to a good end. We have confidence in Christ, Our Shepherd. He leads us in the path of righteousness. He will bring us to our desired haven.   

O, Great Shepherd of the sheep, 
we rejoice that You have gone everywhere we will go in life. 
We praise You that You will continue to lead us 
in the way we should go. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

 

He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.  

Psalm 23:3 

Christ meets our soul needs. The events of life deplete our souls. We experience adversity in many arenas. We may endure adversity that arises from people and their behavior toward us. We may experience health issues that discourage us. We my labor long and hard and be worn and weary. The state of society locally, nationally, and globally may dismay us entirely. Any one of these things may deplete our soul. Beyond that we may endure spiritual battles that cause us to despair of our growth in grace. We want to be more genuinely spiritual than we are. We fail in places that by this time we think we should succeed. We find our souls depleted on various occasions for various reasons. Where shall we go for soul restoration? Christ is the answer. Christ restores the soul of His sheep. He shows us His hands and His feet. He reminds us He has purchased us with His Own blood. He brings us again to behold the grand truths of justification, adoption, sanctification, and glorification. He lifts us up when we are downcast. He communes with us and soothes us when we are wrought up by some soul-depleting circumstance. He restores our soul and replenishes our reserves.  

Our Kind and Gracious God, 
we rejoice that You know us better than we know ourselves. 
We praise You that when our souls are failing,
You restore them.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. 

Psalm 23:2 

Christ gives us rest. As a shepherd, David understood the basic needs of sheep. These are food, water, and rest. As he describes his relationship with Christ, his Shepherd, he says, ‘He makes me to lie down in green pastures.’ Christ provides rest as one of the basic necessities. This rest, along with the food and water is a combination which will enable the sheep to thrive. David is quite clear that this is what Christ does for him. When Christ is our Shepherd we also can say, ‘He makes me to lie down in green pastures.’ Christ has promised rest to those who come to Him, ‘Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ He gives us rest now, even in the midst of a weary world and promises us eternal rest. ‘Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.’ We find ourselves laboring at the moment, often in spiritual ways. We seek to imitate Christ in doing good to those whom we encounter. We find ourselves growing weary at times. We know the work we are doing is worthwhile, but we wear down and out over time. Christ leads us to rest in the midst of those labors and leads us onward to the eternal rest He has prepared for us. He is in every way the Good Shepherd. As we follow Him day by day to all the places He will lead us, we can be sure He will give us all we need, not the least of which is rest.  

Our Gracious Savior and our God, 
we rejoice that You know all our needs. 
We praise You that You give us rest now,  
and promise us rest for the future. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning