"Jesus Loves Me, Forever"

"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever." (Psalms 23:6) Have you ever thought about what forever means? A really long time does not even begin to describe eternity, but it is about all that we can begin to think about. David started this Psalm with the promise to the Lord that he should not want; as if to say, Lord, You are all that I need, and you supply all  that I should ever want. Now we see the Lord's promises being acknowledged by David as his reward for allowing the Lord to be his Shepherd. Yes, I said 'allowing' the Lord to be his Shepherd. I know that Jesus chooses us, so allowing may not make much sense to some people; but Jesus also choose Judas, who was the one that betrayed Him. Judas did not allow Jesus to be his Shepherd, and when it came to the gift of the forgiveness of sin, Judas rejected that which was available, and instead took his own life. That might be the extreme example, but it shows how we are responsible for how we respond to what Jesus has offered us, and that it is a free gift, but as with any gift, it must be received and accepted with gratitude and assurance. The whole point of the Psalm is that of our assurances in Jesus being our Shepherd; with the premise of our hearing and listening to the Shepherd's voice. Part of that which is the Shepherd's voice, and what all those that are His sheep should hear, is His identity of who He is as the Shepherd; in other words, His sheep know that He provides safety and eternal security, therefore they need to look nowhere else, nor do they need to worry about finding those things. We are assured by the Lord, who as the Shepherd of our souls, will never leave us nor forsake us, and that we will forever be with Him in heaven for all eternity. What more could we ask for? and what more can we want? As I said in the beginning, I do want, and I do ask daily for Jesus to heal and restore my wife's mind; but that does not prevent me from feeling satisfied in my own spirit. That might not make much sense to some, but you must understand something about how I have come to accept where I am at and what the Lord leads me through; it is all about learning how much God loves me, and no matter what it is that my life might lack in the physical, the love of God overcomes in the Spiritual. I know without a doubt that my wife will be fully restored and given a new body without any defects whatsoever; but until that day she is taken home to be with the Lord, my duty as her husband is to love her, care for her, and pray for her healing. After all, isn't that also what the Shepherd does for us? Until we are taken home to be with Him, we are not going to be made complete, and we will always be in need of forgiveness; yet Jesus loves us, cares for us, and makes intercession for us daily; of this we are assured... "What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ, shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For Thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:31-38)