Mansions and Tents
Today's Three-minute Bible Study
Print, Study and Apply
Title: Mansions and Tents-------------------------------- Date: 05/27/2000
Keywords:
"eternity" "goodness" "home" "love"
Welcome
to eXXit, the web site designed to help you stand strong in the face of sexual
temptation.
Today we continue looking at one of the most-often
memorized and recited passage of the Old Testament. There's a reason it is so well-used --
it never wears out! Let's take a fresh look and see what it has to say to us in the face
of today's pressures and strains. We'll look at verse 6 today.
Passage: Psalm 23:1-6*
1. 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.
Questions
1. What do you think of when you think of being at home?
2. Do you have confidence in where you will be for eternity?
3. What is your current address, your current spiritual dwelling
place?
Practical help
The last verse of this passage is meant to be a deep comfort. The
writer has been taken from the quiet, green meadows through the valley of the shadow of
death; he has faced down his enemies at table with God; he has been honored with anointing
and fine wine, and now he knows where he stands with his Lord and Master. He can say with
confidence, having experienced all this, that he is safe in his Savior's arms, and that he
need fear no evil. He knows God as the source of goodness and love, and he knows where he
is most at home.
Sometimes we live as nomads. We set up tents and camp in places
where we were never meant to stay. We don't feel quite at peace, but we stay anyway
because it takes too much hard work to pitch the tent and carry it on to another place. If
you are camping in the land of false intimacy, of pretending to find love when all you're
really finding is frustration, it's time to move on. Think about your real dwelling place,
where Jesus wants to be with you forever. Jesus said, "In my Father's house are many
rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for
you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be there
with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:2,3) He's setting up a home that
is permanent, not at all like our little camping tents. And you have a room there, one
that is designed just for you, for who you are. Knowing that should be reason enough to
fold up the tent and move on, and leave the land of pornography for good.
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*Scriptures are from The Holy Bible: New International Version © Copyright 1973,
1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. All rights reserved.