The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing.
Psalm 23:1
Today the Lord pointed me to Psalm 23. Walk with me and I will share with you some of the many things the Lord has helped me to see in this beautiful passage of scripture over the years that have been instrumental in changing my heart.
This very first verse says it all.
The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing.
Why am I lacking nothing? Because the Lord is my shepherd.
And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:19
Did you catch that? All our needs are met in Christ. The Greatest Shepherd of all time.
Allow me one more scripture and then we will dive in to what He is saying through me.
“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.”
Luke 15:31
Some of you who know the story of the prodigal son returning home may think this is an odd excerpt to single out. It’s not though. This is what the Lord showed me this morning.
Abba Father has long been on a journey to help me understand and realize that IN CHRIST I lack nothing.
“Am I Enough?” – Words the Father spoke to me over and over and over again.
And in my heart I cried out “I don’t know, Dad. Am I enough for You?”
So many of us have endured pain, hardship, torment, and torture even. Our weary souls don’t even know what we need. We just need it to stop. To end. To change. And we often find ourselves in this whirlwind where it does not stop. It does not end. It does not change.
That’s when we have to have the loving revelation that Christ is what we need. Period. End Stop.
To know of Christ and to know Christ are drastically different things. My heart aches for the ones who are caught in this whirlwind. Oh the stories of heartbreak I could dialogue about for endless days involving the despair of my soul because of events that could never be mentioned on this page.
To those who know what it is to have a broken soul, I have good news for you. Christ, our Lord, came in the flesh, died, and rose again just to know you.
One day in worship He gave me a vision. I was walking through a large mansion with many rooms, but one room in particular Christ led me to. In my spirit I knew it was called “The Treasure Room”. Christ stood in this room as I entered in and observed every precious jewel you can imagine piled higher than high. Think Scrooge McDuck piles of jewels and ornaments.
Yet here was Christ. Before my very eyes. And while I saw all these valuable treasures what I will never cease to remember for all my days is the look in His eyes when we locked eyes.
LOVE.
Love that I don’t know how to put on a page. I don’t. I wish I could. Oh how I think Paul so desperately tries to describe this love in 1 Corinthians 13, but how could you possibly really traverse the height, width, or depths of that look in His eyes.
And this is what He told me. Oh Lord help me with grace to remember Your Words.
“If you were the only one on earth, I would still have left all of this and Heaven’s Grace to die for your gain. For you are mine and all the earth.” – Christ my Savior and Lord
The treasure I actually found that day standing in the Treasure Room of Heaven was Christ.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matthew 6:21
Listen. I am not against the prosperity message. I just believe in a prosperity that comes from Christ. For what good is it to gain all the world has for me and lose my soul? Six figure salaries didn’t satisfy. Houses and cars did not satisfy.
Church, the world has houses and cars and golf memberships and greater things than these. Trust me. I’ve worked for millionaires.
Why do we believe we are to emulate these things as a demonstration of prosperity?
I don’t feel like this should be controversial but somehow it is.
Prosperity is to have and know Christ.
Remember the son who stayed? He was bewildered by his father’s demonstration of love for the son who left. There he was. A son who stayed and in his words “slaved” for the father “never disobeying your orders”!
But that’s the thing.
He saw himself as a slave. He had total and complete access to the father always. And still, he was a bitter, disappointed slave.
You can stay in church, you can preach the word of God, you can know all the “right” things to say.
But if you don’t know Christ then you truly have nothing.
I’m afraid we have to back up church, reassess ourselves and get some things right.
See here’s the story of the prodigal with a message from the streets.
There is no greater gift in all of Heaven and earth than Jesus Christ, our ABBA Father, and the gift of His Spirit which He gave.
Oh to prosper. To know Him. Really KNOW Him! What greater TREASURE IS THERE in Heaven or in Earth?!
I have no greater joy than to hear my children walk in truth.
3 John 4
Christ IS the Truth. The Way. He is LIFE.
To prosper is to have Christ.
“Am I Enough?” – Abba
Oh my Father, my Savior, my Friend.
YOU ARE MORE THAN ENOUGH.