Reflecting God – Embrace Holy Living - The Global Church of the Nazarene's The Foundry Publishing House in Kansas City, Missouri, United States for Saturday, 3 February 2018 "He Saves Us" by Robin Radinski - John 10:1-18

Reflecting God – Embrace Holy Living - The Global Church of the Nazarene's The Foundry Publishing House in Kansas City, Missouri, United States for Saturday, 3 February 2018 "He Saves Us" by Robin Radinski - John 10:1-18
"He Saves Us" by Robin Radinski
John 10:1 “Yes, indeed! I tell you, the person who doesn’t enter the sheep-pen through the door, but climbs in some other way, is a thief and a robber. 2 But the one who goes in through the gate is the sheep’s own shepherd. 3 This is the one the gate-keeper admits, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep, each one by name, and leads them out. 4 After taking out all that are his own, he goes on ahead of them; and the sheep follow him because they recognize his voice. 5 They never follow a stranger but will run away from him, because strangers’ voices are unfamiliar to them.”

6 Yeshua used this indirect manner of speaking with them, but they didn’t understand what he was talking to them about. 7 So Yeshua said to them again, “Yes, indeed! I tell you that I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All those who have come before me have been thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn’t listen to them. 9 I am the gate; if someone enters through me, he will be safe and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only in order to steal, kill and destroy; I have come so that they may have life, life in its fullest measure.

11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand, since he isn’t a shepherd and the sheep aren’t his own, sees the wolf coming, abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf drags them off and scatters them. 13 The hired worker behaves like this because that’s all he is, a hired worker; so it doesn’t matter to him what happens to the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd; I know my own, and my own know me — 15 just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father — and I lay down my life on behalf of the sheep. 16 Also I have other sheep which are not from this pen; I need to bring them, and they will hear my voice; and there will be one flock, one shepherd.

17 “This is why the Father loves me: because I lay down my life — in order to take it up again! 18 No one takes it away from me; on the contrary, I lay it down of my own free will. I have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to take it up again. This is what my Father commanded me to do.”(Complete Jewish Bible).

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The greatest challenge for the Christ-follower is the daily choice to be led by the voice of the Master. Constantly the destroyer climbs over the walls of our minds and subtly, quietly, steals our joy and our peace. Our thoughts are continuously harassed by patterns that we do not denounce and do not recognize as a thief. So we allow complaining, judgment, faultfinding, and anxiety to guide our lives, instead of listening to the voice of the Shepherd.
Even sheep won´t follow a stranger. Yet, we have at times allowed our enemy in closer than we have allowed the Shepherd. Christ´s desire for me today is that I find good green pastures, while the thief´s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. And although God is good and kind, He cannot shield us from our own waywardness; He cannot enforce on us a disciplined mind if we are not intent on hearing His voice.
In my daily thoughts, prayers and actions, the Good Shepherd beckons me to follow Him to the bountiful life available to those He has called and saved. The choice is mine, not only to walk towards salvation, but also to focus solely on the voice of the Master.
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Hymn for Today: "Bring Them In" by Alexenah Thomas.

1. Hark! ’tis the Shepherd’s voice I hear

Out in the desert dark and drear,

Calling the sheep who’ve gone astray

Far from the Shepherd’s fold away.

Refrain: Bring them in, bring them in,

Bring them in from the fields of sin;

Bring them in, bring them in,

Bring the wand’ring ones to Jesus.

2. Who’ll go and help this Shepherd kind,

Help Him the wand’ring ones to find?

Who’ll bring the lost ones to the fold,

Where they’ll be sheltered from the cold?

Refrain: Bring them in, bring them in,

Bring them in from the fields of sin;

Bring them in, bring them in,

Bring the wand’ring ones to Jesus.

3. Out in the desert hear their cry,

Out on the mountains wild and high;

Hark! ’tis the Master speaks to thee,

Go find My sheep where’er they be.

Refrain: Bring them in, bring them in,

Bring them in from the fields of sin;

Bring them in, bring them in,

Bring the wand’ring ones to Jesus.

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Thought for Today: A psalm of David:

Adonai is my shepherd; I lack nothing.(Psalm 23:1).

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Please pray: That many people in Spain will come to know Yeshua the Messiah and receive the fullness of the Ruach HaKodesh.
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