By TIMOTHY L. MELTON, PASTOR
(Transcribed by Myra D. Colgate)
Cherokee Pentecostal Holiness Church
“Grab your pens, your pencils, highlighters and that kind of thing. Let us just get ready today. We’ll be moving around a bit in your Bibles, to see what the Lord has for us today,” encouraged, Pastor Melton.
“Father, in the Name of Jesus, I pray this today that You would open the Scriptures to us. Amen. By the Spirit of the Living God, Holy Spirit, You are the great Teacher and the great Preacher, and I pray that You would speak into every last one of us here. Amen. A Word that will change our lives.
“Father, those watching by internet, I pray You would grab hold of them and You would cause a Great Awakening across this nation. As the darkness gets darker, I declare over this nation and the world that Your Light is getting brighter. Yes.
“Father, there are those who are beginning to see a flicker that they’ve never seen before and I thank You for it. Father, there are those that are “on fire and burning”, I ask You, Lord, to just pour on them what would cause all to “burn brighter” than ever before. Lord, we thank You that in these last days, I believe, last minutes, O God. Lord, You are causing Your Church to strengthen right, like never before and for that, I give You the Praise, the Glory, and all the Honor in the Name that is above every name. I pray in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Amen and Amen.”
Read Psalms, Chapter 23, the Bible says, “The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want. (Hallelujah! Amen.). He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil. My cup runneth over. Surely, Goodness and Mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever. Amen.
How many of you realize today that you can have The One Who knows where you’re supposed to be? Yeah, and He is One Who is keeping you on your Way, leading you to the place you are supposed to be. He is the One and Only Jesus Christ, the Great and Mighty Shepherd. Amen.
Like you, this means I don’t have to get up in the morning and wonder, or worry, using the vernacular of the world, to worry about how I’m going to get where He wants me to be. All I have to do is follow Him. Amen.
Some years ago, we were invited to a friend’s house and we said we’d go. We took off following them, and the only question for us was, do you know how to get there? Of course, that answer for me was a “no” because the one who knows how to get us there is already leading the charge. All I have to do is follow that individual and we will get where we’re supposed to go.
The problem is, the Church, for so long, has been trying to get there while the Lord is simply saying, “All you have to do is follow Me.”
I found out a long time ago, I can sit for hours and pray that God will bless what I’m doing, or I can just figure out what He is doing and join Him and then it is automatically blessed. Amen. Amen. “The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want. In other words, He knows how to provide everything. He knows how to do it in a timely manner. He knows how to do it when it looks like it can’t be done.
Very quickly, I want to deal with these verses because I want to get down to Verse 4. Sometimes the great Shepherd has to come to the busy, little sheep and make them lay down. How many know that means that God can ‘tailor’ a circumstance to cause everything you thought needed to be done, and stop them right there. Those things that you’ve been rushing around, trying to get done, He knows how to put an end to them in a hurry, and cause you to just be able to sit down. Why would He do that? It’s because God understands that there comes a time when struggling must cease, when the worrying will have to stop and so we can take a break, a rest.
Yesterday, we determined when we got out of bed that weren’t going to do anything. Cassie and I said we’d just do nothing all day today. I have good news. We did nothing all day. We even made someone else cook and we ate that. We spent a lot of time laying around. We spent a lot of time laughing and cutting up. Why? It’s because we’ve not had a lot of downtime lately. Sometimes you just need to lay down and stop. Amen. The world. Amen. Somebody even wrote the song, “Stop World, I want to get off.”
How many of you have ever felt like that? I just needed everything to stop. It’s sometimes needful because it’s during these times that vs. 3 happens. He restores, our souls. The soul is your mind, your will and emotions. How many of you realize you are of little value to the Kingdom of God if your mind is still running at every little thing coming at your direction. Sometimes God wants you to just sit down and focus solely on Him, so he leadeth you in the paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake- Jesus.
Continued next week.
