Living abundantly... in grace & knowledge & joy throughout life’s trials!
I thought today I would share part of the devotional I wrote for our Art & Faith Creative Retreat that we would have been on right now. This is from Day 9 and I hope it blesses you today:
Living abundantly... in grace & knowledge & joy throughout life’s trials!
I want to talk today about how Jesus is the True & Good Shepard.
John 10:7-11 says: “Then Jesus said to them: 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.”
I think of these verses often, and in different context as well. Right now, in the context of the Coronavirus and this lockdown, I think of this scripture in terms of 2 things:
The thief & the “Abundant life.”
So my first question is this: Has the thief taken away our abundant life right now? Or do we still have life, and have it more abundantly?
Well… I think that is actually a choice for us to make. Let me back up and explain. In John 10 Jesus is talking about His sheep. (Those who are believers in Jesus Christ) and how we can be lead by either shepherds who are thieves and robbers (the Pharisees of those days, who one commentator said were tools in Satan’s hands) or we can be lead by the True Shepherd, who promotes life. In verse 8 I love how it shows that His sheep “did not hear them,” these false prophets & they knew who was their True Shepherd!
Right now we have so many false teachers, false news, fake reports and pretty much all around confusion… There IS an enemy who throws flaming arrows at us (Ephesians 6:16) and who wants to destroy our faith and this comes at many different angles:
False teaching
Trying to rob us of Gods truth
Arrows of doubt and fear
Distraction and busyness
So is the enemy working in many different ways right now to do all those things? YES. He wants us, in whatever way possible, to be distracted from our calling in life, our peace, even our purpose God has for us right now. The enemy wants us to be destroyed by this virus, to have his arrows deliberately kill our faith! Can he do that by throwing arrows right where they hurt the most? Right to our insecurities, right to where we don’t have the armor of God on? Yes he can and he does… just like verse 10 says:
The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy…
But our abundant life of faith is in JESUS friends! Notice how Jesus says “He is the door.” He used another shepherd analogy here in that the sheep would go into pens that had only one exit/entrance “door” but the door WAS the shepherd. The shepherd would lay his body across the entrance to keep the sheep in and the wolves out. That’s an amazing picture for us! Christ IS our protection and He shows us in Ephesians 6 “how to keep the whole armor of God on, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” (Eph. 6:11)
Maybe we need to be reminded of the Armor of God today.
Is our shield of faith weak because we forget that Jesus is our protector? Maybe our anxiety is trying to take over because we don’t take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Maybe we haven’t hidden God’s Word in our hearts and minds?
All this is not to accuse anyone… I see these weaknesses in my own life, especially as this Covid 19 has played out and we are stripped of most daily distractions… and what we are left with is lots & lots of time. And time that can be damaging, or SO abundant.
Will we be distracted by these “thieves” that want to destroy God’s sheep? Or will we hear our Shepard's voice, calling us by name to take up the shield of Faith? To walk by faith, stand firm and be bold in proclaiming that we DO in fact have abundant life, right now… stuck at home, because we have a life that is content in Jesus.
Jesus laid His life down for His sheep and He is able to supply ALL our needs today! He gives us strength, stamina, and energy to win over the enemy in His name.
He is THE GOOD SHEPHERD friends, and I want to remind you that He knows you by name!
I want to quickly tell you a story about shepherds that I heard when I was reading a commentary on these verses in John 10. Shepherds know each sheep and they call them each by name, just as we call our dogs or horses or cats by name. But not only that, the sheep KNOW their names and would only follow or respond to their shepherd. During WWII some soldiers tried to steal a flock of sheep in Jerusalem. When the shepherd woke up and saw they were gone, he called out to them and they listened and returned to him! The soldiers couldn’t stop the sheep from returning to their shepherds voice! I love that.
My second question is this: Will you hear His voice?
Above all the other voices vying for your time right now, when time is actually plentiful… will you hear Jesus calling after you to come to Him and find that He IS good. Even in the hard things He is our stronghold, the True Shepherd who will lead us through these days of trouble, out the other side with more life abundant than we could have ever seen if we didn’t walk through this with Him as our refuge and protection! (Nahum 1:7)
God is GOOD and He wants to be your Way Maker today and every day going forward! Please take a few minutes to listen to the song Way Maker by Leeland, it’s so beautiful.
Today Reflect on This:
You have a choice to hear God’s voice over all other voices. How can you choose to focus on the True Shepherd’s voice right now? What are things you can do right now?
Read Ephesians 6:10-20
How can walk out the Armor of God practically in your daily life?
Journal a Door to reflect Jesus as our True Shepherd. Below is the one I painted during our Zoom class last Saturday with all the ladies who would have been in Paris with us right now.
Have a great day everyone!
Hugs,
Laura