daily java

Daily Java:

I am the good shepherd. (John 10:11)

My wife and I drove past some sheep the other day and she pointed them out. She also commented that you don’t see sheep a whole lot.

I was born and raised in Texas. That is cattle country, pardner. But even so sheep and other stuff, like emus and llamas are coming in. And the problem is most of us don’t really relate to sheep.

However, God did. In the culture Jesus came from sheep were dominant. They used their wool, their milk, their manure for fertilizer and occasionally ate the sheep for supper. But it is something we don’t know much about. Since I have never eaten sheep’s milk cheese (or at least not that I know) I don’t know if it is good or not. I have eaten lamb and kind of like it, although I would hate a steady diet of it.

I have read enough westerns and seen enough cowboys to get some idea of how cattle are handled. But I really don’t understand sheep. I know they are extreme herd animals. They will follow each other practically off a cliff and get scared easily. I have also found out in the past several years that they can be mean and bite.

The shepherd takes all this into consideration I have found. He knows they are unpleasant little creatures but works with them. I even understand they name the sheep. I know cowboys will usually name one or two dominant cows or bulls, but shepherds have a greater knowledge of their sheep.

They also have to protect them because, unlike cattle, they are helpless and cannot take care of themselves. They are also stupid.

It is a little irritating sometimes for me to be likened to a sheep. I don’t mind being a bull. I saw a male longhorn the other day with impressive forward sweeping horns. They were probably two feet long. I like being like that.

But a sheep. That is what he called us though. Why? Because we can be stupid and follow each other into problems. Get a bunch of guys in a bar together and you got problems waiting to happen. Get them liquored up and the problems mount. And in general people are like that. Problems waiting to happen.

Jesus said he was a shepherd that loved his sheep and wanted to help them. He said his care for them was out of love, not out of a career move.

His intervention in our lives is to help us find what is right, and to help us come back to God. He is not here to raise us then butcher us. He is here to love us and for us to love him. And unlike sheep, he wants us to love each other.

And we follow him like sheep. The sheep were comfortable with the shepherd and Jesus wants us comfortable with him too.

The Good Shepherd wants us to follow him to heaven. And he loves us.

daily java

Daily Java:

So I sacrifice my life for the sheep. I have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock with one shepherd. (John 10:15-16)

Hard as it is to believe, there are other people in the Kingdom of God than you and other opinions than yours.

We get to thinking that the way we feel, the way we believe, the way we view things is the right way to do it. And we get to thinking that anyone who disagrees with us is wrong. That is somewhat normal, since each one of us lives inside our own minds.

It takes a child a long time to realize that other people have feelings equal to his, that they hurt when you bite them or pinch them, that they have their feelings hurt too. That is hard for a child to realize but it is an essential part of growing up.

People who never realize that fact are mentally ill. They are called psychopaths. Billy the Kid and Charles Manson are two who come to mind. They feel they are the only real people and everybody else is there to do what they want.

People get like that in the church. They feel that theirs is the only real theology or the only real interpretation, and if you do not agree with them, you are sinful and God does not love you.

Several times Jesus said that there were other sheep, other viewpoints, others performing miracles in his name. These were not part of the group normally associated with Jesus and a couple of times, the apostles were ready to stop them. But Jesus said leave them alone. He said: Don’t stop him! Anyone who is not against you is for you (Luke 9:50).

That’s a hard thing, to accept people with different viewpoints. It is hard to realize that others do not see the scripture as you do and have a different opinion. And it is hard to realize that their opinion is as valid as yours.

Churches have been torn up by this. But when it comes down to it, people look at different things in different ways all the time. How many flavors of ice cream are there? Or styles of clothing? Or styles of music? Or kinds of cars? You can’t even get people to agree on how their steak is done. It is weird to think that we would all look at the word of God exactly the same way.

Just because people disagree with you doesn’t matter. What matters is what the apostle Paul said in Romans 10:9: If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

After all, he also says in 1 Corinthians 12:3: So I want you to know that no one speaking by the Spirit of God will curse Jesus, and no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit.

The devil cannot glorify God no matter what else he may try to do. And if someone proclaims Jesus as Lord and works to that end, even if he disagrees with you, he is still among Jesus’ sheep. And you accept him, just like Jesus told his apostles to do.