Sheep and Shepherd

Bible reading : John 10:1–28

Jesus is our shepherd and we are his sheep. John explains how Shepherd cares for his sheep and how sheep hears him. Let’s read John 10:1–28 and gather the qualities of sheep and shepherd and we can examine ourselves if we are his sheep or not.

Shepherd:

Call his own sheep by name
Lead them
He goes before them
Lay down his life for sheep
Know his sheep

Our shepherd knows us by name,(Isaiah 43:1) it’s important to have this truth rooted and grounded in our hearts and mind to know how much he cares, he has so many sheeps but still he knows me by name and he numbered my hairs!(Luke 12:7) Wow amazing to know the creator of the universe knows every detail of me!!! And love me so much!

He calls us personally! He speaks to us personally in so many ways.He wants to have an intimate relationship with each sheep.

Jesus leads us every step of the way , in our day to day life giving wisdom to lead a life that is pleasing to God and walk blameless before him.

He goes before us every day leading us.he is before us leading to light from darkness, When we know he is before us it gives such a tremendous strength especially when we are walking in challenging situations.

Laydown his life for us!! Wow wow…who can laydown their life for some one else? Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person (Romans 5:7).It’s so sad many times we forget this truth and wont value his blood as we should. It’s terrible.Its important to remember his sacrifice every day to walk in reverance and adoration.

Sheep:

Hear his voice
Follow him
Know his voice
Won’t follow stranger
Flee from stranger

Lets ask ourselves these questions

• Do I know(recognize) his voice?
  (discern from the voice of my own mind/flesh and his voice?)
• Do I hear him?
  ( able to understand what he is saying?)
• Do I Follow him? ( Obey him ?)
  ( not the hearer but the doer of the word)
• Am I following strangers? ( Examine what we hear and read)
  ( We should be able to discern sheep vs wolf.. Wolf comes in sheep clothes.check what we hear and follow ? like false preachers etc..)

It’s important for every believer to recognize his voice. He speaks to us through the word of God, messages,prayer, visions, dreams so many different ways he speaks.personally I rely on the word of God more!

We all know God speaks to us.. How much do we hear him? For example when we are reading our daily bible we come across Matthew 6:15 if you do not forgive others their sins your Father will not forgive your sins. If we have unforgiveness in our heart we can hear him speaking to us.. But we go on to complete our reading and we may just utter a prayer to help us to forgive and go on with our routines. If I am following him , I stumble at that word and re read it many times and search our hearts for that unforgiveness and Pray with repentance and we actually make sure we are completely forgave them. This manner follower of Christ makes sure they are obeying every word from him.

Followers of Jesus won’t just read or listen to any kind of messages, they test and see if it’s according to the word of God! If it’s not we should flee from that.

If we are not doing the above we are not his sheep :(

His Sheep will have:

Eternal life
They will never perish
No man will pluck them out of my hand.

What a promise we have !!

We have eternal life and we will never perish and no one can pluck us from his hand, even if we are lost in our own world away from him sometimes, he will search for us found us ( parable of lost sheep Luke 15:4–5). His love for us is so strong that our human brains cant comprehend it.No one can separate us from the love of Christ!!( Romans 8:35)

I pray we all gripped by his Love and be His sheep and follow him!!