This is the first book

23rd Psalm - He restoreth my soul' Our Lord has blessed Himself to me, so many times through the writings of the 23rd Psalm and I want to dwell for a few moments on part of the 3rd verse where there are the words He restores my soul'. Now these words are very important yet so different and it might even have been a good thing to type every word using a different type face, there is a great significance in every word, they are pregnant with meaning. Our God has a Soul Restoration Campaign, in sales campaigns these days there is very often, a leading personality paid to lead the campaign, now the campaign that we are considering is led by the Son of God Himself, our Lord Jesus, indeed He gave His life, in all its fullness, to lead this campaign, through Him our souls are restored.

Now let us analyse the four words to see what we can draw from them so that our hearts and minds might be warmed towards our God and His Christ and that we might rejoice more so in all that we have in Christ Jesus

The first word HE' teaches that in the restoration of the souls of mankind it is our God who takes the initiative, it is not a DIY matter, we cannot make it on our own, He moves forward to draw us to Himself and let me draw from other Scriptures in support of this. In the older versions of the Scriptures we have in Ephesians c2 v1, that we were dead in trespassers and sins, being dead there is no life or activity to generate life so help is needed from outside to make us alive and in Psalm c23 we are taught that this help comes from the he' and that is none other th

Then we turn to the teaching of our Lord Jesus himself as recorded in John c6 v44 & 65, just dwell on the words, No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him' and This is why I told you that no-one can come to Me unless the Father has enabled him'. These two quotations puts the matter very clearly, our Father God draws us to Himself through our dear Lord Jesus, by His Spirit, He takes the initiative in His loving kindness. We then have those lovely words of our Lord Jesus in the book of the Revelation, where He says Behold I, yes I stand at the door and knock, if any man hear my voice and opens the door I will come to him and sup with him and he with Me' and these words put the final touch to the truth we are considering. He stands at the door of our lives and knocks, He call I cannot work my soul to save,
for that my Lord has done,
but I will work like any slave
for love of His dear Son

Now we come to the word RESTORES. There was a time when our Father God and human kind walked in complete harmony, in Genesis c3 v8 we understand that God walked with man in the garden in the cool of the day', what fellowship and communion that must h

Now as we put our faith in our Father God, throu

The next word we are to consider in the text is MY', this is a singular word, it applies to every one of us as individuals, our God has called me out, He has also called you by His grace.

Our lives are in the hands of our Lord Jesus, also those of our Father God and He will never let us go, but we must cleave to Him

Then we come to the final word of those that we are considering, the word SOUL, what makes us different to the animal world is that we have souls', we are told that in the beginning, God breathed into man and he became a living soul' but we are told in the Scriptures, The soul that sinneth, it will surely die' and we read from the Psalms that, No man can keep alive his own

Let us now think of death, it is an absolute certainty that every single one of us will die, the odds are 1 to 1. As we are Christians we will go through death to be with our Lord, we now live in the world where we all die, but as believers we go to the land of the living. Can I encourage you to think frequently about one passing from this life, we all fear the process of death whatever form it might take, but please dwell on the words of the hymn by Edith When passing through the gates of pearly splendour,
Victors we rest in Thee, through endless days the same

As we believe we will go through death to be with our Lord, to see Him in the fullness of His glory, God The Father, God The Son and God The Holy Spirit. We will worship Him in that eternal day in a way we never understood while here in time, what a day it will be!

This is the first book