It is so wonderful to see the Lord’s organic shepherding in His ascension as the pneumatic Christ in Psalm 23! Yesterday we saw that Christ is our good Shepherd and we lack nothing; He leads us to waters of rest and to green pastures to lie down and enjoy Him…
Today we are enjoying His restoring of our soul and His guiding us on the paths of righteousness (Psa. 23:3).
He restores my soul – we are being renewed and transformed!
We need to be restored in our soul – we need to be renewed and transformed in every part of our soul (Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18)! The Lord Jesus as the good Shepherd and the Overseer of our souls takes good care of us – He shepherds us by caring for the welfare of our inner being!
He exercises His oversight over the condition of our soul, so that our soul with all its problems may be renewed and restored (1 Pet. 2:25).
Christ in resurrection, Christ as the life-giving Spirit, restores our soul by reviving us, renewing us, and transforming us in our soul! Whenever we turn our heart to the Lord, we behold Him and we reflect Him – and this is of the Lord Spirit, of the pneumatic organic Christ as the Shepherd!
All the many problems in our soul are being dealt with by the Lord’s organic shepherding. We have so many problems and issues, but His shepherding restores us and renews us…
He guides me on the paths of righteousness
The issue and the purpose of our soul being restored by our organic Shepherd is so that we may be guided on the paths of righteousness! Guiding is more specific – leading is more general.
Christ restores our soul so that we may take His way and walk on the paths of righteousness – these paths indicates our walk (Rom. 8:4; Gal. 5:16, 25). Here we see again the system of grace (where we enjoy the Lord as green pastures, waters of rest, and our soul being restored) and the system of government (we are guided on paths of righteousness).
God needs some representatives on earth – Christ is the King, the Governor!
As we enjoy Him as the green pastures, the waters of rest, and as the One who restores our soul, we are being guided to walk on the paths of righteousness to represent Him and be the co-kings with Him on the earth!
Sometimes we may behave foolishly or we may dress improperly because we don’t walk according to these paths of righteousness.
Taking the many paths of righteousness
There are many paths of righteousness: a path of humility, a path of loving, a path of patience, etc. Just as we drink of Christ as the Spirit and out of our innermost being flow RIVERS of living water (John 7:38), so when our soul is being restored by Christ as the Shepherd, we are guided on many paths of righteousness for His name’s sake!
Righteousness is to be right with people before God according to His righteousness and strict requirements. We have to admit that we all are short of the paths to be right – we are not right with God or with man. We need to be proper and balanced in our mind, our emotion, and our will – otherwise, we cannot be right with God or with man!
The Lord does not outwardly correct or change us, nor does He want us to correct or adjust ourselves. Rather, He wants to specifically guide us on particular paths of righteousness by the organic shepherding and soul-restoring work of the pneumatic Christ!
He leads us inwardly to walk on the paths of righteousness in Himself! This is based both on our experience of Christ daily and on the Word of God…
[sharing inspired from the life-study of the Psalms and the message on this week, as quoted in the Morning Revival on the Crystallization-Study of Psalms(1). Intro: Jehovah restores my soul…]
Lord Jesus, continue to restore our soul. We need to be renewed and transformed in our mind, emotion, and will! We don’t want to be conformed to this age but be transformed by the renewing of our mind! O, Lord, how much we need to be restored in our soul… Have Your way in us, Lord, even to guide us on the paths of righteousness. For Your name’s sake, guide us on these many paths of righteousness!
