Last week, we learned of God’s heart to shepherd His people. After all, He is not only a good shepherd, He’s the ultimate, best shepherd!
A good shepherd lays down their lives to care for their sheep. There is no greater example of anyone ever doing this than Jesus. Stepping out of eternity, wrapping Himself in flesh, living with our weaknesses and temptations, humbled as one of us.
Jesus lived His life in full surrender and trust in His Heavenly Father’s hands, sinless, laying down His life continually long before His ultimate sacrifice on the cross.
In a likely familiar Psalm, David wrote:
Psalm 23 (NLT)
1 The Lord is my shepherd;
I have all that I need.
Have we, like David, found our everything, all we need, in the Lord?
It wasn’t that David didn’t face incredible difficulties and challenges in life. It wasn’t that he didn’t get discouraged and frustrated; just read his other psalms and the account of his life. It reads worse than a modern-day soap opera or reality series!
Through it all, he wasn’t alone. The Lord was with him and for him, even when that meant sending a prophet to call him out on his hidden, unrepentant sin.
David realized and acknowledged that whether running for his life with nothing or ruling a nation from a posh palace, the Lord was all that he needed.
David, a life-long shepherd, recognized that the Lord was his shepherd. Good shepherds. Game recognized game.
2 He lets me rest in green meadows;
he leads me beside peaceful streams.
3 He renews my strength.
He guides me along right paths,
bringing honor to his name.
Isn’t God so good?
We are so blessed to be able to experience His goodness here in the land of the living!
4 Even when I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will not be afraid,
for you are close beside me.
Your rod and your staff
protect and comfort me.
Again, life with the Lord doesn’t mean that everything goes well. We will still face troubles just as Jesus promised. However, we don’t face them alone. We need submit ourselves to fear!
If David can defeat a bear and lion chowing on one of his sheep and a giant named Goliath smack talking God, then surely we can face our troubles with God and come out of them victorious! David acknowledged that it wasn’t him or his skill or his strength, it was the Lord working with him and through him.
As if the Lord shepherding over us wasn’t enough, He goes above and beyond and richly blesses us way beyond what we deserve!
5 You prepare a feast for me
in the presence of my enemies.
Not just the nutrition that we need. Not just the bare essentials. A feast!
It’s not a feast celebrating some great accomplishment of ours, either.
Right there in the presence of our enemies, in the middle of the battle, a feast!
With the Lord, there is no loss that cannot be restored!
There is no need for fear for there is none greater than He!
Even in the battle, especially in the battle, we have reason to praise and rejoice!
David didn’t just enjoy feasting in the presence of his enemies both literally and symbolically, he took it a step further!
David invited Mephibosheth, the family of his enemy, to feast at his table. Sitting at the table of the king, his crippled feat were unseen. He was handed all of the property and riches and belongings of his grandfather, king Saul, and even servants to work the land.
His response to David?
Mephibosheth bowed respectfully and exclaimed, “Who is your servant, that you should show such kindness to a dead dog like me?”
Sometimes we may feel the same way. When we realize just who we are in comparison to the glorious splendor and perfect holiness of God, who are we? Why should we be so richly blessed? Why is the Lord so kind to us when all that we deserve is His wrath?
I don’t know, I just know that we are loved! God’s so incredibly good! He’s not finished there, either!
You honor me by anointing my head with oil.
My cup overflows with blessings.
6 Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me
all the days of my life,
and I will live in the house of the Lord
forever.
As we surrender to the Lord in faith and trust in Him, we gain more than we could ever lose! As we turn to Him, we are guaranteed to be met by Him. He’s already in pursuit of us!
We are assured to be met by His forgiveness and kindness and love and goodness and mercy and grace and so much more! Every good and perfect thing is found in Him alone!
Jesus, the Good Shepherd, anoints our head with oil.
I cannot think of an Biblical account of anyone who’s anointing from the Lord was not revealed through challenges. There is no need for a miracle without an impossibility!
In fact, the entire purpose of a shepherd anointing their sheep was for protection and healing. Protection from insect bites and flies laying eggs in their noses and parasites burrowing into their heads. Healing from wounds caused by battles with other sheep or predators or just cuts and scrapes caused by navigating the terrain as they travel.
This anointing was also empowering to the sheep. They could go about doing what they were created to do without fear of the insects buzzing around them. Grazing in grassy fields, playing together, and chewing their cud without fear. There is a purpose behind anointing!
The rod of their shepherd brings comfort. They know that there are real predators out there desiring to tear them to pieces for a nice meal. However, they observed time after time how their shepherd could send that enemy in flight as they protect them.
At night when the sheep are brought into the safe keep of a fence, the shepherd physically sleeps at the only entry/exit point of the fence. The shepherd is the gate. Any sheep exiting that protection or predators trying to get in to the sheep must go through them.
What a good shepherd we have in Jesus! In John 10, Jesus taught that He alone is the Good Sheperd over His one flock. He is the gate for the sheep. They hear and recognize His voice and won’t listen to the voice of another.
He’s not a hired hand that runs when the danger of the enemy approaches! He lays down His life for the safety and protection of His sheep.
Jesus spoke of His own anointing:
Luke 4:14-21 (NLT)
14 Then Jesus returned to Galilee, filled with the Holy Spirit’s power. Reports about him spread quickly through the whole region. 15 He taught regularly in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
16 When he came to the village of Nazareth, his boyhood home, he went as usual to the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read the Scriptures. 17 The scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where this was written (chapter 61):
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released,
that the blind will see,
that the oppressed will be set free,
19 and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.”
20 He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. All eyes in the synagogue looked at him intently. 21 Then he began to speak to them. “The Scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day!”
Jesus’ anointing came through opposition. Isaiah 61 says that Jesus’ anointing came to respond to sheep described as poor, captive, blind, oppressed, brokenhearted, imprisoned, darkness, mourning, grief, ashes, despair, ruins, devastation, shame, disgrace, robbery, and wrongdoing.
What was this anointing intended to release into all of this opposition?
Isaiah 61 says that the anointing releases healing, freedom, good news, favor, comfort, provision, beauty, everlasting joy, praise, rebuilding, restoration, renewal, a double portion, rejoicing, justice, faithfulness, and salvation.
Who wouldn’t want that?!?!
In Exodus 30, the Lord gave Moses a very specific recipe to create a fragrant anointing oil to mix as a skilled incense maker. That oil was used to anoint the tabernacle, the ark of the covenant, the altar and everything on it.
It was anointed to set it apart, to consecrate those things and to make them holy for the Lord. Anything that touched what had been anointed would not desecrate what had been made holy, but would rather, become holy as well!
Exodus 30:29 (NLT)
Consecrate them to make them absolutely holy. After this, whatever touches them will also become holy.
The anointing operates very differently than everything else in God’s community. There are so many things that make a person unclean before the Lord by simply making contact with it.
When it comes to the anointing, however, when something unclean touches what has been anointed makes the unclean thing holy, consecrated, set apart for the Lord. It does not make the anointed thing unclean.
Imagine for a moment that you are a tiny, annoying, buzzing gnat. You’re going along your day buzzing around the faces of people and animals annoying them. It’s your favorite thing to do! Then, you see this cool looking sheep. You buzz right toward it and get close to its head.
What you don’t realize is that this sheep’s head has been anointed. As soon as you get too close, you become stuck. The anointing has overtaken you and your little wings can no longer give you flight. You didn’t stop the anointing, the anointing has stopped you in your tracks!
The prophet Ezekiel writes about plans for a future temple. In it, there is a warning that the priests who come into the inner courts near the Presence of the Lord to minister before Him must be cautious when going back to the outer courts where the people are.
If they wear their clothes or take sacrifices into the outer courts, those objects will transmit holiness to whatever they touch (Ezekiel 44:19, Ezekiel 46:20). That’s right, like some kind of awesome virus that you actually want! They will transmit holiness to whatever they come in contact with!
We have been filled with the Holy Spirit! We have been anointed by the Lord on purpose and for a purpose! Wherever we go, we leave behind a fragrance, we also transmit something!
We’re traveling through this life crop dusting!
What is it that we’re leaving behind to those around us?
Are we Eeyore’s that leave behind gloom and despair?
Or do we leave behind hope and encouragement?
We do not need to respond in fear when opposition comes our way!
All that we need to do is to go boldly into the inner courts, into God’s Presence, right before the throne and receive God’s anointing in our time of need.
Pressure reveals what is within.
God’s recipe for anointing oil started with the base of olive oil from pressed olives. The oil for the lamps that burned continually before the curtain of the ark of the covenant? Pressed olive oil!
When God permits the troubles and pressures of the world to put the squeeze on us, we need not fear or worry or fret! Greater is He who is within us than anything out there in the world!
This opposition is just an opportunity for us to experience the anointing of God in a brand new way! It’s the oil that will fuel and enable us to shine the light of Christ even brighter!
When people see us praising and worshipping and serving God when things are going well for us, they don’t really think much about it.
However, when everything gets stripped away from us. Everything that we worked hard to build, everything that we held dear, everyone that we love and we still choose to praise and worship and serve, people notice!
That is the part of Job’s account that I found most inspiring. It wasn’t that he was the greatest man in the eastern world, it wasn’t that his life fell apart, it was that when that happened, he fell to the ground in worship praising God in the midst of his pain and grief!
It is that he continued to do so throughout the course of months of pain and torment and confusion and being given every reason to just curse God and die like his wife recommended. This is true, genuine, faith revealed!
* Balloon Illustration *
Job’s story ended by God restoring double what Satan had stolen from him and that the latter part of his life was more blessed than the first!
James wrote:
James 1:2-4 (NLT)
2 Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. 3 For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.
No one in their flesh considers troubles to be a great joy in their life. This can only be possible through the anointing and empowering and equipping of the Holy Spirit! The pressures without reveal the Presence of God within!
Just like the pressed olive oil used to keep the lamps burning before the Presence of the Lord, the pressures of life can actually reveal the fire of God within! They can enable us to shine Christ’s light to those around us.
When others see faith and trust instead of fear in response to troubles, our faith is proven and revealed to be genuine. God won’t let us to be put to shame, either!
Every one of His promises is yes and amen! Shepherd Jesus may take us through seasons of valleys of the shadows of death, but that is not our destiny! He is leading us through them to green pastures and calm waters!
2 Corinthians 4:8-10
8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
When the pressures of life come our way, and they will, we get to choose how we respond to them.
We can worry and fear and fret or we can praise and pray and worship!
We can search our imagination for worst-case-scenarios or we can seek God!
We can shrink in fear or we can rise in faith!
Let’s allow the pressures outside to simply reveal the life of Christ within us!
Let’s allow the pressures to release the anointing of God within!