Posts with the category “99-shepherd”

But I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. Then there will be one flock, one shepherd. If the story ended with the shepherd saving the sheep, it would already be the greatest story ever told, but Jesus doesn't stop there. He says something in John 10:16 that stretches the whole picture wider than we expect. He says, "I have othe...  Read More

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, since he is not the shepherd and doesn't own the sheep, leaves them and runs away when he sees a wolf coming. The wolf then snatches and scatters them. This happens because he is a hired hand and doesn't care about the sheep. There is a difference between someone who is paid to watch and someone who owns wh...  Read More

He tends his flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them in the fold of his garment. He gently leads the nursing ewes. The idea of God as a shepherd didn't begin in the New Testament. It runs through the entire Bible like a thread that holds the whole story together. Long before Jesus stood up and made His claim in John 10, the people of God already knew this language....  Read More

"What man among you, who has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open field and go after the lost one until he finds it?" Shepherds in the ancient world counted their sheep constantly. Morning and night. Leaving the pasture and returning to the fold. It wasn't a habit born out of anxiety, it was the natural rhythm of someone who cared about each one by name...  Read More

"I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me." There is something about being known that reaches a place inside of us nothing else can touch. You can walk into a room filled with hundreds of people and still feel completely invisible. You can be surrounded and still feel alone. But the moment someone calls your name, something shifts. You go from being a face in a crowd to being seen...  Read More