My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. John 10:27.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
Sheep do not lead a shepherd, the shepherd leads the sheep. And yet many people, even those who are considered very devout, are trying to lead Me instead of yielding to the Holy Spirit within. They are, as My Son told the apostle Paul, kicking against the goad. They decide what pleases Me and off they go along their own path, saying how they gave up so much for Me. And often they are doing and teaching things that are not pleasing to Me and that I never asked them to do. And because these things are tiring and often unpleasant, they eventually burn out and give up saying doing My Will is very hard and burdensome. But they are wrong because they were not doing My Will at all but their own. My yoke is easy and My burden light. In Me you find rest for your weary souls.
You see this in the religious leaders at the time of Jesus. They not only did not follow the good Shepherd, they murdered Him.
You can only understand the importance of yielding to the Holy Spirit’s guidance and counsel, that is, being led by the Spirit and not by your flesh, when you understand that your Shepherd laid down His life for you and came to give you abundant life that is forever. He is there to nurture, strengthen, heal, protect, deliver, prosper, and take care of you as a shepherd cares for his flock. Following Him is casting your care on Him because He cares for you and having no anxiety about anything, but in everything, putting the matter in His hands so He can bring it to a good resolution. And you do this in prayer. If you follow His leading you are acting in your own best interests.
I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. John 10:14-15.
Jesus qualifies Himself as your “good” Shepherd. He came to take away your sins by giving His life for yours, so that now you live eternally through Him. Jesus knows every one of you, and died for ALL but He also knows which ones are His own, that is, those who have come to sincerely follow Him because they have come to know and believe that He has the words of eternal life.
Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man. John 2:23-25.
I know each of you who are reading this and I know you are My own, precious in My sight. And now in Jesus I have opened My Kingdom to all who will hear His voice and join the flock of the One I raised from the dead, by the blood of the eternal Covenant, as your great good Shepherd. Jesus. Yeshuah.
“I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.” John 10:16-18.
Jesus speaks here of the Church, before Jesus died and rose there was no place for those who were gentiles in My everlasting Covenant. But now His voice has gone round the world in His disciples, the members of His body, and is creating one new man from gentile and Jew, the Church, His body, and each member a new creation in Christ. And He is the head of His body the Church and the members of a body follow the directions of the head and not vice versa.
Each must be in its proper order. Jesus is the first fruits and has primacy in everything. Keep you eyes on Him and follow Him as your great good Shepherd. And He makes each of you a shepherd of those He entrusts to your care to lead them to salvation.
Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. 1 Peter 5:1-4.
Jesus also stated that I loved Him for laying His life down for you. My desire is that all people be saved and come to know the truth. And My Will prospered in His hand. Isaiah 53:10. To do My Will and win the world for Me by love was His delight because He also delights to dwell among the children of men and by removing your sins from you He made this possible.
Jesus also stated that His live was not taken from Him, He gave it willingly and purposefully. Once He took all your sins on Himself in the Garden of Gethsemane, He had to die, for the wages of sin is death and He was covered with your sins, He became sin for you to that you might be made righteous with My own righteousness.
But the Pharisees found what Jesus was saying hard to bear. He was speaking of bringing the gentiles into the flock and of His authority to rise from the dead. Thus a division occurred again among the Jews who were there because of these words.
Many of them were saying, “He has a demon and is insane. Why do you listen to Him?” Others were saying, “These are not the sayings of one demon-possessed. A demon cannot open the eyes of the blind, can he?” John 10:20-21.
Jesus is the prince of peace and yet people get divided over Him. Why? Because if you believe in Him you have eternal life, so above all other tactics, the devil will go after separating you from Jesus who is your way to everything that is good. He does not want you in the flock of Christ because there He cannot get to you because there is no snatching out of My Hand.
But the Pharisees and Jews present with Him at this conversation, did not forget it.
At that time the Feast of the Dedication (Hanukkah) took place at Jerusalem; it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon. And the conversation began gain.
The Jews then gathered around Him, and were saying to Him, “How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father’s name, these testify of Me. But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” John 10:22-30.
Read those Words of Jesus, and He only said My Words, again and again to bring your heart comfort and hope. He is your savior, Messiah, and Lord, but above all He is your great good Shepherd giving His followers eternal life so that you will never perish. With and in Him you are safe and secure, forever with Me. He will lead you out of trouble and in to abundant life. We are One and in us so are you.
His audience, however, did not see the beauty and goodness available to them in Him and His gracious offer. They picked up stones to stone Him. Does that remind you of what the Israelites I had redeemed out of Egypt did at the edge of the Promised Land when they believed the negative report of the flesh over My Words of spirit and life that Joshua and Caleb spoke? They tried to stone them as well. Why would Words of life cause such dissension?
The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him. Jesus answered them, “I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?” The Jews answered Him, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.” John 10:31-33.
Again, the legalistic spirit that tried to kill Jesus for doing good works on the Sabbath day and for declaring the truth of Who He is, My Son and your Lord. True God and true Man, joining My divinity and your humanity in one seamless, sinless, perfect life.
But Jesus always had the appropriate answer in every situation because first He listened to Me and then He spoke My Words into the situation.
Jesus answered them, “Has it not been written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), do you say of Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.” Therefore they were seeking again to seize Him, and He eluded their grasp. John 10:34-39.
Jesus tried to open their eyes to the truth, but as He told them at the beginning of this conversation when He had healed the man born blind, “Those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, “We are not blind too, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” John 9:40-41.
They were refusing to see what should have been obvious to them as scholars and teachers of the Law. But all they were set on by then was self-righteous jealousy. They were kicking against the goad. You can only kick so long and Jesus will leave you to do as you like and the Holy Spirit will retreat in grief as well.
And He went away again beyond the Jordan to the place where John was first baptizing, and He was staying there. Many came to Him and were saying, “While John performed no sign, yet everything John said about this man was true.” Many believed in Him there. John 10:1-42.
If one place does not receive you, you can always try another. Do not get upset. Just follow Me. I have you in My Secret Place of perfect protection.
Jesus was right there with them but He eluded their grasp. His hour had not yet come, that is, He had not taken all your sins onto His own flesh as yet, so He had an indestructible life being born from above, so He had an eternal life in the flesh to give for the one you lost. And He did give it after He took all your sins upon Himself that the hour in the Garden of Gethsemane the night He was betrayed as He prayed for that horrible cup of sin and the wine of My wrath to pass Him by, but He came for that hour and He did not run from it but embraced it with all its shame for the joy of saving you that lay before Him. And once all your sins were on Him, He had to die, for the wages of sin is death.
I love you always remember your good Shepherd and you will always know what to do: Follow Him.
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters of peace and healing. He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the dark valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup overflows. Surely goodness and lovingkindness will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will dwell (abide) in the house of the LORD forever. Psalm 23:1-6.