This morning, Pastor Dale continued our new series in Psalm 23. The Psalm begins with the declaration, "The Lord is my Shepherd." We looked at two questions related to this declaration: 

1. Why would I want the Lord to be my shepherd?
2. Am I willing to accept that I am a sheep?

We know our life experience is one of growth and change; that the nature of the human soul is dynamic and not static. As these changes occur, we are being formed. The question is, "Who or what are we being formed into?"

As John Mark Comer writes in his book, Practicing the Way: 

"We are being either transformed into the love and beauty of Jesus or malformed by the entropy of sin and death. “We become either agents of God’s healing and liberating grace, or carriers of the sickness of the world.” To believe otherwise is an illusion, and to give no thought to this is to come dangerously close to wasting your life."

Being formed into the image of Jesus isn’t something we do as much as something that is done to us by God himself, but we are not off the hook. Godly transformation isn't something our Father will force on us. We have a responsibility, an action item. We are to cooperate with God’s transforming grace. 

To cooperate with God's transforming grace, we can begin with an honest assessment of where we are today. What word would you place in this blank?

____________ is my shepherd

As we learned through our study through the gospel of Mark, we get to know what God the Father is really like through Jesus; what he said and what he did. As we look at Jesus' life we see Jesus is a shepherd who wants the role of Shepherd in our lives as he sees peace even in the midst of chaos. He is a shepherd who provides that peace, gives the peace, sends people out in peace. He is a shepherd like Psalm 23 who will be there “All the days of your life.”

He not only is the Shepherd, Jesus also knows what it’s like to be a sheep. He was the most vulnerable of all the sheep, the lamb for sacrifice. He experienced being led by a shepherd and took on the role of the lamb, fully living Psalm 23:1, “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing."

The second question we asked ourselves, are we willing to accept that we are His sheep? Are there areas of our lives where we are trying to lead instead of being led by our Shepherd? Are we looking to our Shepherd to see where He is leading, trusting in His provision, aware of His presence? 

We invite you to sit with the Father and as you read and meditate on Psalm 23 and seek His input on these questions and what steps He's inviting you to take to be formed by Him this week.