Looking at the WORD of God, we can see that Jesus came for us all and not for Himself. He came into this realm so that we all can be saved and the Old testament points to Jesus from the beginning and then the New testament reveals Jesus coming onto the scene. There is no denying the fact that everywhere we read in His WORD we see Jesus. The whole Bible is all about Jesus and who He was to whom He became in the New testament. He was with the Father in the Old Testament and in the New Testament He is revealed as the Son of God who became to us The Son of man.
Jesus Himself said in the book of John 10: 1 - 6
Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus used this illustration, but they did not understand the things which He spoke to them.
I would like us to check this in the amplified
I assure you and most solemnly say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the sheepfold, but climbs up from some other place [on the stone wall], that one is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep [the protector and provider]. The doorkeeper opens [the gate] for this man, and the sheep hear his voice and pay attention to it. And [knowing that they listen] he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out [to pasture]. When he has brought all his own sheep outside, he walks on ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice and recognise his call. They will never follow a stranger, but will run away from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what He was talking about.
In this passage we can see Jesus as
- The true shepherd
- The door
- The way
- The leader
- The protector
- The provider
Jesus wants to be all of the above to us in our lives. He desires to be if we want Him to be in our lives. He is love and He loves us all too much and came into our lives as our true Shepherd. He did not enter into our lives forcefully like the other shepherds of our time. He came into our lives when we invited Him in as our Lord and Saviour.
We have a shepherd that cares for all of us deeply and does not want us to go astray. He came to save us by dying on the cross for us all and He rose so that we can know and believe that He is our True Shepherd. And truthfully there is no other God that can die for us like Jesus did.
He says in this passage that He as come to be our Shepherd to lead us by going before us. Why would He go before us? First, because of His love for us and secondly He knows the right path to walk better than we do and thirdly as he goes before us any attack from the enemy who is Satan will not be able to come near us , simply because He deals with the enemy before he can touch us. This is awesome .
The True Shepherd is Jesus!
And He said something beautiful here in this passage. The sheep follow Him, for they know His voice. The question now is this, Do we know His voice? To know His voice is to know Him and to know Him is to have given our lives to Him and to stay in His WORD, meditating on His WORD day and night, to know Him is to spend time in His presence, to know Him is to surrender all to Him and to know Him is to believe that He loves us at all times.He said so in the book of Romans chapter 8: 31 - 39
To know Him as the True Shepherd is to recognise His voice in the midst of all that is going on around us. Jesus who is our Shepherd cannot but speak to us because we are His sheep. He can use various means of speaking to us in his WORD, an audible voice like He did with his prophets of old, let's remember that He spoke to Paul and instructed Paul has to what to do for His Kingdom. he speaks to us in dreams and he can use his prophets who represent him to talk to us.
Once we recognise the voice of our Shepherd we cannot follow or hear the voice of a stranger, why? His WORD says that light and darkness cannot comprehend each other. We are also children of light and therefore, we are able to flee from strange voices that only come to steal , kill, and destroy. Do we realise that there are lots of voices out there? and unfortunately the enemy uses this voices to distract us and if we are not able to recognise our Shepherds voice, how can we know the truth from the lie?
But Jesus in His faithfulness as the True Shepherd will always reveal to us the truth from the lie and show us the way to walk by going before us.
The True Shepherd is Jesus!
Reading the next passages in John 10: 7 - 18
Jesus the Good Shepherd
Then Jesus said to them again, “Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd.
Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.
Here we are seeing Jesus as the Good Shepherd
He is actually saying to us in this passage that He came to give us life and an abundance life. A life of living in His presence, a life of been fulfilled and a life where we are loved and cared for as His sheep. He says that some false prophets had already come before Him to steal from his sheep but thankfully the sheep did not listen to them. Jesus the good shepherd laid down His life for us His sheep and He did this willingly because of His love for us.
He came to save us not to condemn us, actually the book of Romans 8:1 says that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, if He does not condemn us then I believe that no one can or is able to condemn us to his glory.
The Good Shepherd lives in us and through this we can live a life of abundance in Him. For in Him we live and move and have our being! We are the sheep of his pasture and looking at the book of Psalm 23 we see the Good Shepherd's plan for our lives.
Psalm 23
The Lord the Shepherd of his people
The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters.
He restores my soul;
He leads me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
My cup runs over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days of my life;
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord
Forever.
This is the true work of a True Shepherd. reading this from David proves to us all that we have a Shepherd who is Jesus Christ Of Nazareth!. Our Shepherd!
Our Shepherd is always true to His WORD and ever faithful,. He said in Psalms 138 verses 2 that He magnifies his Word above his name. So all his promises are Yes and Amen in Him. Relax you have a shepherd who is on your side. Trust in Him as your Shepherd and all those storms will pass away. We need to meditate on this day and night and the truth of this chapter will set us free, he whom the Son sets free is free indeed.
Then we see Him as a Shepherd that knows His sheep in John 10: 22 - 30
The Shepherd Knows His Sheep
Now it was the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple, in Solomon’s porch. Then the Jews surrounded Him and said to Him, “How long do You keep us in doubt? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.”
Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in My Father’s name, they bear witness of Me. But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. I and My Father are one.
Jesus knows each and every one of us by name and He said so in the book of Jeremiah 1: 4 - 5
Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you;
Before you were born I sanctified you;
I ordained you a prophet to the nations.
And in Psalm 139: 1 -18
O Lord, You have searched me and known me.
You know my sitting down and my rising up;
You understand my thought afar off.
You comprehend my path and my lying down,
And are acquainted with all my ways.
For there is not a word on my tongue,
But behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.
You have hedged me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is high, I cannot attain it.
Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend into heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there Your hand shall lead me,
And Your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall [d]fall on me,”
Even the night shall be light about me;
Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You,
But the night shines as the day;
The darkness and the light are both alike to You.
For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
My [h]frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.
How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How great is the sum of them!
If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand;
When I awake, I am still with You.
This proves to us that the Lord is truly our Shepherd. I am writing this and I sense his awesome presence. I pray that we all receive this revelation in our spirits and know for a fact that we have Him as our True Shepherd. Reading this reveals to us that our God knows us all and there is no hiding from him as our Shepherd. This is so amazing and I am actually full of joy that I have someone who knows me and will take care of me no matter what.
Jesus is our True Shepherd!
Let us rest in this truth and see our shepherd working in our lives. Jesus is able to do much more than we can ever imagine in our lives because he is the good shepherd.
God gave us His Only Begotten Son to us and He said this us in Romans 8:32
He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?
This is the truth of what the True Shepherd as done for us in our lives. He says if He gave up His own Son, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?
He is ready to shower us with everything to his glory and an abundance of it all. God did not spare His only Son therefore, he has given us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Not only that He as also given us eternal life in Him.
Jesus is our Shepherd!
Jesus our shepherd shed his Blood for us so that we can be his sheep and his Blood will always speak better things into our lives than the blood of Abel. Our shepherd paid the price for us to be free and through his Blood we are redeemed from the hands of the enemy.
The Shepherd said Let the redeemed of the Lord say so whom He has redeemed from the hands of the enemy in Psalms 107:2. Because we are his sheep we are delivered from the hand of the enemy who we refer to has Satan.
As his sheep we are not to fear according to the book of 2 Timothy 1:7 because we have been given a spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind.
We are his sheep and we have overcome them because the one who is in us is greater than the one who is in the world in 1 John 4:4.
We are his sheep and we can do all things through Him that strengthens us in Philippians 4:13.
There are lots of promises in the WORD of God from our Shepherd. The promises of our shepherd can never fail in our lives to his glory.
Remain blessed in the presence of our True Shepherd in Jesus Name.
