The Shepherd for the Sheep

“The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing” (Psalm 23:1). This amazing truth is ultimately fulfilled in the Good Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ. Only in Him is all that is promised to us fully realized. For all the Psalmists declaration to become realizations for us, Jesus had to lay down His life for the sheep (John 10:11). Consider the following ways that Psalm 23 is fulfilled for us in the Good Shepherd:

• Jesus had to lack everything for His sheep.

• Instead of rest in green pastures, He had no place to lay His head (Matthew 8:20).

• Instead of still waters, He was baptized with the wrath of God (Luke 12:50).

• Instead of a restored soul, His soul was poured out unto death (Isaiah 53:12).

• Instead of being led in right paths, He was lead as a sheep to the slaughter and offered Himself as a propitiation so that God might be proved righteous (Acts 8:32, Romans 3:25-26).

• Instead of fearing no evil in the dark death valley, He was made evil Who knew no evil and sorrowed unto death as He contemplated the darkness of death that would utterly consume Him (2 Corinthians 5:21, Mark 14:34-36).

• Instead of having God with him as His comfort, God forsook Him, pouring out His just wrath upon Him (Matthew 27:46).

• Instead of having a rod and a staff to comfort Him, the rod of the Father was pleased to crush Him (Isaiah 53:10).

• Instead of having a table spread before Him, He hungered in the wilderness and thirsted unto death (Luke 4:1-2, John 19:28).

• Instead of having His head anointed with oil, He wore a blood-soaked crown of thorns (Matthew 27:29).

• Instead of having a cup that overflows, He drank the cup of the wrath of God to the dregs (Isaiah 51:17, Matthew 26:39).

• Instead of goodness and mercy pursuing Him all His days, wrath and torment pursued Him unto death (Isaiah 53).

• Instead of dwelling in the house of the LORD, He was banished from the dwelling of the LORD as the unclean and cursed one (Galatians 3:13)

Jesus had to lack everything as He Himself became the Lamb Who was slain (Revelation 5:6, 12). He did all of this on behalf of stubborn, sinful, hell-deserving sheep who rebelled against Him. This is the best news in the world! All who know this Good Shepherd by grace through faith will lack no good thing, for He will provide for them, protect them, comfort them and satisfy them fully – He will be all and all to them now and forever and ever:

“Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 7:15-17).