All Round Restoration by Pastor Jerry Eze: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

The Word of Restoration

Every believer who has come to Christ has already received full restoration. Everything the enemy took as a result of the fall of man, the Lord restored the moment a person receives Jesus as Lord. Ephesians 1:18 speaks of "the hope of his calling and the riches of the glory of his inheritance." Restoration is not something believers ask God for as though they lack it; it is something already possessed that simply needs revelation to be seen and walked in.

A man can be restored yet still live as though he has not been restored, because he lacks the revelation of what already belongs to him.

A person who moves into a house that is legally his but does not know it will behave like a stranger in it, content to remain at the door instead of taking possession of every room. The enemy's strategy is to make believers feel that healing, provision, and wholeness are things they lack rather than things already secured by the finished work of Christ.

The Lord Is My Shepherd

Psalm 23:1 is the foundation of the whole psalm: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." Every line that follows, whether green pastures, still waters, or the valley of the shadow of death, flows from that one statement. Restoration is not a separate promise; it is the natural result of a relationship, that he is shepherd.

The word "shepherd" is a compound of "sheep" and "herd." To say the Lord is my shepherd is to declare that identity itself, one's very name, is bound up in him. Past, present, and future are all found in him, so that the only way a person could stop being who they are is if God himself ceased to be who he is. Acts 17:28 and Colossians 3:3 both affirm this: in him we live, move, and have our being, and our life is hidden in Christ.

The Shepherd Provides the Pasture

The reason a shepherd is called a shepherd is that he provides pasture. Restoration begins with feeding, since the soul is restored only after it has first been fed. Psalm 23:5 describes a table prepared in the presence of enemies, but before that public table exists, there is a private feeding that happens away from every audience.

Before the Lord ever shows others what he is doing for someone, he first feeds that person privately and builds capacity in them. That quiet communion is never meant to prove a point to onlookers; it exists to deepen faith and shape character before any public breakthrough is displayed. The temptation is to long for the table that will silence one's critics more than the private feeding that builds the inner life, but capacity, not spectacle, is the true purpose of that season.

The Mystery of the Rod and the Staff

Psalm 23:4 introduces "thy rod and thy staff." The staff represents the shepherd's authority over the sheep, and the rod represents his defense against predators. A person only discovers the reality of the rod and the staff by passing through the valley of the shadow of death. The valley itself is not the lesson; what it reveals about the shepherd's authority and protection is the lesson, echoing Psalm 2:1-4, where every plot formed against the Lord's anointed comes to nothing.

Believers often fix their attention on the difficulty of the valley without realizing that what is being unveiled through it is the shepherd's determination over their life and his defense against every scheme.

The Sheep Know the Shepherd's Voice

A shepherd never lets the sheep remain in one place. Just when the sheep settles, thinking it has arrived, the shepherd leads it further, because what is ahead is always better than where it currently stands. Jesus said his sheep know his voice and will not follow the voice of a stranger. It is said that a new shepherd needs roughly a month before a flock learns to recognize his voice; once they know it, the sheep will run toward that voice even without understanding why, simply because it is familiar.

Often the shepherd's call is what spares a person from a danger they never saw. Many things believers have obeyed without understanding, an unexplained instruction, a sudden change of plan, a warning in a dream, were the shepherd's voice sparing them from disaster they could not perceive. A testimony was shared of a building that collapsed on the same day intercessors had prayed specifically over a place where children gather; not a single child died. Prophetic revelation that God shows a person is meant to be met with prayer against it, not passive announcement of it, since revelation is given for intercession, not commentary.