Monday, May 16, 2011

One of His Sheep!

Why does my Heavenly Father and my Savior refer to me as a sheep?  Have you ever wondered that child of God?  When I think "sheep"  I think of cute woolly animals.  Yet, that is not why Jesus  opted to call us sheep!  He wanted us to understand how much we need Him.  He wanted us to understand our helpless estate.  So let's look at sheep and then shepherds.  Your pride might get knocked down a few rungs but as you read, may you understand just how much our Savior loves us.....He knows our frame.  Thank you Jesus!

1.) Sheep are not all that bright- sheep are not cunning, they tend to wander from the protection of their shepherd.  Sounding familiar?  God is not saying we are not intelligent in the book sense but we are people who left to ourselves will crave darkness over light.
2.) Sheep are directionless- They can easily become lost and this puts them at great risk for harm because they don't know their way back to the pasture they were in.- Isaiah  53:6 confirms this same trait in us...."All we like sheep have gone astray.  If not for our Shepherd, we would become so easily entangled in the affairs of this world and lose our direction and some may not find their way back for a long time, if ever
3.) Sheep are weak and defenseless.  They will freeze in their tracks and panic in a dangerous situation.  The sheep's best defense is staying close to the shepherd.  So it is with us.  Just as sheep are prey for wolves, Satan goes after the sheep of the Savior, without the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives we too will not be able to defend ourselves- in a panic we become an easy target of the enemy.
4.) Sheep easily become restless- two reasons sheep will become restless is hunger and bugs.  A well fed sheep will not quickly eat from anyone's hands but a hungry sheep will eat anything!  We must stay well fed Christians, fed by the Word of God.  If we fail to satisfy our hunger through the Word of God, we will find ourselves eating from the hand of the enemy!  Bugs are a big problem for sheep.  They land on the head of the sheep and nest there.  If the bugs go undetected by the shepherd, the sheep can actually be blinded.  The shepherd takes care of this problem through rubbing olive oil of the sheep's head so that the bugs cannot land there.  We have Satan and his demons constantly trying to destroy our spiritual sight.  That is why we need the Holy Spirit (oil is associated with the Holy Spirit)  When we have His anointing on our lives, the demons are unable to land on us and blind us.
5.) Sheep are a prized possession!- A shepherd pays a great price for his sheep and he will carefully guard them.  No other animal has a shepherd like the sheep does.
6.) Sheep need a lot of water-  If there is a dry spell a sheep can actually die of thirst.  We are like sheep in that we need the water of the Holy Spirit, the Living Water!  If we are not drinking from Him often we will face a spiritual drought and even spiritually die of thirst.
7.) Sheep know the voice of their shepherd- while they don't have great understanding, the moment they hear the voice of their sheep, they respond!  Unlike other animals they don't need marking to identify them, they know the voice of their shepherd, even when they are mingling with another herd of sheep.- So it is with us!  We may not have understanding of all that God is doing in our lives- but we know His voice and we must respond to it.
8.) Sheep cannot get up on their own- Sheep fall down and you will see it frantically struggling to get up on its own.  However, they are unsuccessful!  The shepherd has to come and help them.  If the shepherd doesn't help them they will become easy prey for their enemies.  So it is with us- we need God and we need each other.  When we fall, we have a Shepherd who will always run to pick us up lest we stay down and become a target for our enemy.
9.) Sheep must be sheared for its own good-  Sometimes a sheep will fall over because it has too heavy a fleece.  The shepherd will come along and shear the sheep to remedy the problem.  While sheep don't like the process, in the end they feel better.  Often their fleece is weighed down by manure and ticks and sticks and burrs.  It ends up being a relief.  We, too, have a Shepherd who sees when we are weighted down with sin.  He will come along and shear us.  While it may not be a fun process, in the end we feel the same relief the sheep feel.  It feels good to have the weight of our sin lifted off of us even though it might have been a painful process.
10)Sheep will remain dirty until someone cleans them-Sheepskin is full of lanolin (an oil)  It conditions the wool so that the animal will be warm in winter but oily wool catches all kinds of dirt.  We also remain dirty until the Savior cleanses us from sin.

Our Shepherd
1) He protects- A shepherd will literally lay his body across the opening of the door to the pasture.  This position kept the sheep in and the wolves out!-  Jesus laid His body out on a old rugged cross and today He stands at the gate- protecting us from Satan and from ourselves.
2.) He lives with the sheep- He knows them intimately, living among them.  Jesus left heaven to live among us so that He would understand all that we go through.
3.)A shepherd uses suffering as a last resort for the straying disobedient sheep.  Jesus never desires for us to suffer but if we continue to stray and disobey, He will use extreme discipline in order that we don't lose our lives.  A shepherd will break the leg of a forever straying sheep.  A straying sheep will even cause other sheep to go astray.  (Sheep aren't too bright!)  If one sheep walks off to the edge of the cliff, other sheep will follow and they too will find themselves in danger.  At first a sheep is angry with the shepherd and may even try to bite the shepherd.  But within a few days the sheep is loving and submissive to the shepherd.
Jesus loves us too much to let us continually wander off or take others with us down the wrong path.  He will permit suffering in order that we might come home to Him and never stray again.
4.) The shepherds motive is not in anger to punish but in love to rescue- So it is with Jesus.  The wrath of God was satisfied on the cross so as His children we do not face his wrath but we will face His love in order that He can rescue us from our sin.
5.) A shepherd will search until he has found his lost sheep- As will our Shepherd Jesus- this is how much He loves us.
6.) A shepherd lifts the sheep- When the shepherd finds his sheep he literally picks it up out of the danger.  This is what Jesus does to us as he carries us in his arms.
7.) The Shepherd wants to find his sheep-  Jesus wanted to find us- that is why He came to earth to die- He wanted us to turn to him.
8.) The staff and the rod of the shepherd bring comfort-  The rod is used in defense, the staff is used to direct the sheep.  God has given us His Word.  A rod in the face of the enemy, a staff for us to find guidance for our lives.

God doesn't look down and think "Stupid sheep!".  He instead sent us a Shepherd, Jesus Christ.  May we find even greater comfort in being called a sheep.  It is an animal that is cared for in ways that no other animal is cared for.

I love being a sheep!