PSALM 23:1-6 – “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.”
THEME OF THE DAY: LOOK OVER YOUR SHOULDER. An area in our lives seeking to be exploited by the devil is how we view our past, and each of us has a past. There are failures, sins, attitudes, conversations, and actions we simply are ashamed of. Even our thought lives aren’t always what we would like exposed to others for the same reason – shame. Timothy Witmer wrote an excellent book titled Mindscape: What to Think About Instead of Worrying. He stated, “If you had access to the mindscape (mind) of another person for twenty-four hours, you would probably be shocked at what you saw. Think about it: How many of us would like someone else to have twenty-four hours of access to our thought lives. I wouldn’t.”
It doesn’t get better with the closer we get to Jesus. As we do, the more we see our sins present and past. That is not a bad thing. It is a good thing if we approach it correctly. The Lord will show us our past and present sins to humble us and produce within us a heart of gratitude and praise for His patience, mercy, and grace.
However, the devil wants to do the opposite. He desires to get us to focus so much on our past sins and failures that we lose sight of two things. God’s amazing grace of forgiving us of all past sins and of His choosing to cast our sins into His seas of non-remembrance – “He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19).
In essence, the devil tempts us to look over our shoulders and see all that was wrong in our lives – our sins, our failures, our falling short of God’s glory, our rebellion, and all the things we are ashamed of from our past. Such thinking is spiritually paralyzing. But there is hope. We have Psalm 23, and how does it end? Pointing us to what really follows us every day of our lives!
So, when looking over our shoulders, don’t see what the devil would have us see – our sins and failures. Instead see what the Lord sees and tells us what in reality follows us – His goodness and His mercy!
PRAYER: Father, I praise You that it’s Your goodness and mercy that follow me all the days of my life, not my sins.
REFLECTION: The devil tempts us to look to our past sins. The Lord prompts us to look to His past mercy.