Last week, in part one, we began taking a closer look at the names of God. As mentioned, names carry more of a meaning than what we have come to generally think. That’s why we see God changing the name of people whenever He made a covenant with them, or blessed them; such as Abram to Abraham, or Jacob to Isaac for example.
Given the importance of names, it would therefore benefit us to examine the names which God has given Himself. If He places importance on names, then all-the-more would God then want us to understand the names which He has revealed to s about Himself. After all, He didn’t name Himself for His own benefit, He did it for our benefit, because He wants us to know Him and His character.
So we continue today to look at the names of God and what they show us about Himself, that we would have a deeper understanding and relationship with Him.
If you’ve ever been to a church service before, you have probably heard the old analogy preached “how often do you eat? More than once, right? So you should feed your spirit more than once as well.” This is an often-used statement which highlights the importance of continual spiritual feeding – it’s also a good analogy, quite Biblical in-fact… however the Bible does not stop there. The scriptures are very clear about what – or I should say who we are to continually feed on.
What we will be studying today, is what exactly the scriptures say about feeding on Jesus, how this feeding occurs and how feeding continually on Jesus benefits us. God does not leave any of these details out, because He wants us to know and receive all that He has given to us. So if your spirit has been hungry, or even if you don’t realize that it has been, come, taste and see that the LORD is good, and let’s feed on Jesus today.
There are many forces in this world that put themselves in a place of leadership. Men desire to lead other men; simply turn on the television and you will see countless people all eager to give their opinion and advice on all kinds of things, setting themselves up in positions of leadership. We in moments of pride, desire to lead ourselves, and of course Satan has always desired leadership as well.
However, when we follow these leaders, or ourselves, where do we end up? The Bible says in 2nd Peter that those who follow other things and people are led into sin and darkness. However there is One Good Shepherd; One who does not lead astray, but leads into true rest and freedom from all bondage and oppression. This is what we will be studying today. Following the Good Shepherd into Righteousness.