"He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake." Psalm 23:3
It never ceases to amaze me how the "verse of the day" that I get from my Bible app seems to fit in with my circumstances. I think it is one of the evidences of how God's letter to us, the Bible, is (as it is described) a "living word." I'm know there are thousands of people opening up that exact same daily verse and it is speaking to each of them in some amazing way. Maybe our particular circumstances are different, but the living word of God speaks nonetheless. I'm thankful for a loving and amazing and kind God who uses such seemingly trivial words on a page...16 words in this verse...to speak volumes to my heart and my mind.
"He restores my soul"
This particular, and famous, Psalm was written by David, Israel's greatest king. The implication here is that his soul needed restoring, as does ours. David was far from perfect. As a matter of fact he did some stuff that was absolutely terrible, and he knew it and he knew he needed restoring. So, why does this little statement resonate with us thousands of years after it was written? First, it's truth. And truth never changes. My soul needs restoration, and so does yours. It doesn't matter how good we think we are or how we try to be. God's requirement is perfection and none of us is perfect. So, how does that restoration take place? Great question!
First, by admission of the fact that we're not perfect. That's pretty easy. "Nobody's perfect," right?
Second is the acknowledgement that there's no way for me or you to attain perfection. Ok, still pretty easy.
The third is the tricky one...acknowledgement that our soul needs a Savior. Because there is nothing we can do to attain perfection, or restore our souls, we need someone to do that for us. This is where we struggle. Why? Because it requires humility. We have to humbly admit there is nothing we can do.
We're stuck. We're literally up the creek without a paddle, from a soul restoration perspective.
The restoration needs to happen between our souls and God himself. He is the perfect judge and the One who determines our ultimate destination. There is a gulf there and we can't bridge it, no matter how hard we try.
But God....
I've mentioned this before, but I love that phrase. It occurs again and again in the Bible. But God has done the work for us; through Jesus Christ. The death of Jesus Christ took our place for our imperfection, or sin (sin is a Greek word meaning missing the mark, which is perfection...it has to do with archery and the mark is the bulls eye...pretty cool stuff). The resurrection of Jesus Christ, on which the totality of the hope of restoration rests, sealed the deal. All you and I have to do is acknowledge it, believe it and decide to follow Him because of it.
"And not only that but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have not received reconciliation." Romans 5:11
So, there it is; the basis of the good news of God. He restores my soul to Himself through Jesus Christ. But, you say, I have followed Christ for many years. I know this already. Why is this truth so important to me today? Because despite God providing this reconciliation with Himself and our "best efforts" to follow Him, we fail. Every day. We can't even do or follow the most basic of commands because we are so imperfect.
"What commands am I talking about?" you ask. "I don't murder or steal or any of those other awful things." Well, that's a discussion for another blog on another day. My point is more to this: Jesus was asked by the religious leaders of His day this very important question.
"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment?" Jesus replied, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment." Matthew 22:36-38:
Do you do that? Do I do that? Hey what happened to all the "Thou shalt not" commandments? We can do our best to avoid those most of the time and we can pat ourselves on the back for doing it. Jesus was quoting to these religious leaders from the book of Deuteronomy, which they knew well, where God was giving the Israelites His laws for them. Also interestingly is the Hebrew word for love, "Ahava." In our language and in our society, love has become associated with feelings. In English love is defined as an "emotional attachment." In Hebrew, the word love, ahava, means "to give." It is an action. So, in essence the commandment really means "to give" all of your heart, all of your soul and all of your mind to God. That sounds simple, but it is not easy! Why? Because you and I are too easily distracted.
Despite our distraction and imperfection and repeated failures, here's the amazing news: that "He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake."
God does it.
It is all about a loving and amazing and kind God who has given us a second chance (and third and fourth, etc, etc) and shows us the way each and every day through His "living word."
I invite you to look into it for yourself and if you ever want to talk, I'm always here.
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