Does God Summarize His Promise for your life in a single sentence in the Bible?

Does the last sentence of one of the most well-known Bible passages give us insight into God’s comprehensive promise for those who believe in His Son?

Does that same single sentence unlock the doorway to understanding the power of faith?

Hebrews defines faith as “confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see”.

David combines the hundreds of promises in 66 Books and summarizes his faith in those promises in one short sentence. 

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Psalm 23:6 ESV https://bible.com/bible/59/psa.23.6.ESV

Charles Stanley’s In Touch organization is always referred to as a teaching ministry. Twenty-one years ago this week he delivered a message and since then it has been viewed over 3 million times on youtube. In that message, he clarifies the 3 different levels of faith; the highest level being perfect faith. In his illustration, he tells the story of Jesus and the Centurion and Jesus and the sick lady. In each case, Jesus said it was their faith that unlocked the power to heal. The common core was that faith always came before the miracle. It was the same type of faith that caused the fig tree to die when Jesus said it would- “ he who does not doubt in his heart but believes what he says will come to pass…”. Jesus also clarified that lack of his neighbor’s faith kept Him from doing miracles in His hometown. 

About 1000 years before Jesus, His ancestor wrote one of the most famous statements of faith and one of the passages many people learn at the beginning of their Christian journey. The last sentence of Psalm 23 starts out with the word “surely” or “assuredly” in some translations and then goes on to summarize David’s faith in what God promised to deliver.

The Hebrew for surely has several options: assuredly, without a doubt and several others.

The Hebrew word for follow also has several definitions, one being pursue. 

Using these Hebrew words, we then have:

“Without a doubt [God’s] goodness and mercy shall pursue me all the days of my life and i will dwell in the House of the Lord forever”.

David was 100% sure that God would give him all the good things he needed, be merciful when he sinned and that he would live with God for eternity. 

Is there anything else that any of us could ask for from God?

Goodness - all good things we need.

Mercy - always forgiving is for every sin and mistake we make.

Eternal life- Heaven with God when we die.

David knew God’s plan for him, and He wrote it down. There is no equivocation- David was 100% convinced not only that God could do it but also that God would do it — assuredly, without a doubt.

Too often we complicate the simple and overlook the obvious. Many organizations use lots of paper and ink defining the statements of faith for their organizations and that always helps identify their goals and missions. However as individual child of God, David used one sentence and he was called a man after God’s own heart.