Social Distancing Your Past

Social Distancing

Your Past

 

What is following you?

David said

“Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life”

It is clear to see if you are a person who does good and shows love

You will find Goodness and Love follow you

But what if we are like David

With some things that were not good and did not show love?

Than Romans 8:28-30 gives us encouragement

“In all things God works for the good of those who love him”

The Good Shepherd leads us in the way of doing Good and Love

This will always cause us to look at what is following us with joy

And if we have not done good or showed love that too

 The Good Shepherd can work for your good

If we love God and have a genuine repentance

 Your Past

Psalms 23 verse 6 concludes

with our past and our future.

David says something is following him.

It is something he lives with every day.

He tells us two things

that follow him every day…

Goodness and Love

We do not know at what point in

David’s life he is writing Psalms 23.

But we can assume it was later

in his life, because the Psalms

tells us of experiences he had.

He was old enough to have enemies. Verse 5

Faced the danger of death. Verse 4

Experienced prosperity. Verse 5

I personally believe that if Psalms 23

was true in any point of his life…

 It would have to be true at the end of

his life for God to include it in the Bible.

So I believe Goodness and Love

followed him all the days of his life.

    

Knowing David’s life, we know he had

failures and done some very evil things.

Remember his affair with a married woman, Bathsheba.  

To cover up his sin he had her husband, Uriah,

put in the front of battle and abandoned to die.

If that was in my life, it would haunt me

and follow me all the days of my life.

David’s first six sons were

by six different wives.

 II Samuel 3:2–6

Furthermore, they were all born

during the seven-and-a-half years

of bitter Patricidal war.

II Samuel 5:5

Under such circumstances, any kind of

wholesome family life was impossible.

The firstborn of these six sons was Amnon,

and we see David’s grief at the news that

Amnon had first raped and then

disdained his half-sister, Tamar.

 II Samuel 13:14,15

This grief was multiplied when Absalom,

another of these sons, murdered Amnon

in revenge and then instigated a national

 rebellion, finally being slain in battle himself.

II Samuel 13:32; 18:14

Another later led a second rebellion against

David and Solomon, ending in his own execution.

I Kings 1:5; 2:24

David’s greatest sin, of course, was

in the matter of Uriah and Bathsheba,

still another wife, followed

by the death of yet another son.

 II Samuel 12:18

David had a bad and evil past.

A past that could follow you and bring

clouds of depression on the sunniest day.

Yet David says…

Surely goodness and love will follow me

all the days of my life

How could this be possible?

Only because of the Good Shepherd.

David was a man of genuine repentance and faith.

He trusted the Good Shepherd to not

only lead him on the right path…

 But David trusted the Good Shepherd to have

mercy and get him back on the right path.

David saw the Good Shepherd as not giving

up on him so he did not give up on himself.

David did not allow his past to get in

the way of following the Good Shepherd.

He did not follow with pride and arrogance.

David was humbled by his past and

understood life is not about following your

own heart but having a heart after God.

Acts 13:22

David could never say…

“Surely goodness and love will follow me

all the days of my life”

By looking at his own failures.

We reap what we sow.

Our past will bear fruit in

our future, both good and bad.

David saw fruit of pain and

suffering, but he did not forget…

Goodness and Love follow him.

God’s Goodness and Love

is with us every day.

And when we make mistakes there

is still hope for the future because…

God works all things to our

good because He loves us.

 Romans 8:28-30

Following the Good Shepherd will lead us

on a path of sowing Goodness and Love.

I hope you can see Goodness

and Love following you.

If not, sow more Goodness and Love today…

And every day.

 And sooner or later it will follow you.

Scripture Reading

Psalms 23:1  NIV

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,

he leads me beside quiet waters,

3 he restores my soul.

He guides me in paths of righteousness

for his name's sake.

4 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.

5 You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil;

my cup overflows.

6 Surely goodness and love will follow me

all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the house of the LORD

forever.